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THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 



THE DRY FLY 
AND FAST WATER 

FISHING WITH THE FLOATING FLY ON 

AMERICAN TROUT STREAMS, TOGETHER WITH SOME 

OBSERVATIONS ON FLY FISHING IN GENERAL 



BY 

GEORGE M. L. LA BRANCHE 




NEW YORK 
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
1914 



,L3 



Copyright, 1914, by 
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 



Published May, 1914 




MAY i3ibl4 



©CI.A3 71813 



PREFACE 

To expound a theory into willing ears upon a 
trout stream is one thing; to put those same 
ideas into writing so that they may be intel- 
ligently conveyed to one who reads them is 
quite a different thing. Of this I am convinced. 
However this may be, my readiness to do the 
one induced in some of my angling friends the 
belief that I could do the other. They insisted 
that I try — and this book is the result. My ex- 
perience in preparing these pages has filled me 
with the profoundest respect for those persons 
who may be truthfully characterised as authors. 
I began the work with a good deal of timidity, 
and, as it now appears to me, considerable 
temerity. After completing the task to the best 
of my ability I submitted the manuscript to 
some of my credulous friends. Strange to say, 
after reading it, even then they insisted that I 
publish it. By this decision it seems to me they 
proved two things — their friendship for me and 
their absolute unfitness to be literary critics. 



vl PREFACE 

Even so, under their instruction and guidance, 
the book is presented to the angling public with 
the hope that it may find some small favour 
among them. 

G. M. L. L. 

May, 19 14. 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I. Early Experiences 3 

II. The Value of Observation .... 22 

III. The Rise 44 

IV. Where and When to Fish .... 87 
V. The Imitation of the Natural Insect 134 

VI. Some Fancies — Some Facts . . . . 176 

VII. The Point of View 204 

VIII. A Few Patterns of Flies . . . . 212 



THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 



THE DRY FLY AND FAST 
WATER 

CHAPTER I 

EARLY EXPERIENCES 

From my earliest boyhood I have been de- 
voted to the fly fisher's art, having been in- 
ducted into it by my father, who was an ardent 
angler before me. For more than twenty years 
I have fished the near-by streams of New York 
and Pennsylvania; not a season has passed 
without having brought to me the pleasure of 
casting a fly over their waters. Each recurring 
year I find myself, as the season approaches, 
eagerly looking forward to the bright days when 
I can again go upon the streams. In the early 
days of the season, however, I am content to 
overhaul my gear, to dream alone, or talk with 
others about the active days to come; for I 
have never enjoyed going upon the waters so 
long as the air still holds chill winter's bite. 

During the early years of my angling I fished 



4 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 

my flies wet or sunk. Such was the manner 
universally prevailing upon our streams and 
the manner of my teaching. I had read about 
the dry fly and knew that its use was general 
in England, which country may justly be said 
to be its place of origin. That this is true may 
not be gainsaid, yet it seems to me remarkable 
that with all the reputed ingenuity of Americans 
the present development of dry fly fishing for 
trout should be almost entirely the work of 
British sportsmen. That the use of the dry fly 
on streams in this country has not been more 
common may be due to a pardonable disin- 
clination upon the part of expert wet fly anglers 
to admit the weakness of their method under 
conditions as they now exist. Their method 
has served them well, as it did their fathers 
before them, and perhaps they are loath to sur- 
render it for something new. In the earlier 
days trout were much more abundant in our 
streams, and the men who fished the streams 
and wrote upon the subject of fly fishing in 
this country may have felt that a knowledge of 
the habits and haunts of the fish was more es- 
sential to success in taking them than the em- 
ployment of any particular method. The merits 
of up-stream over down-stream fishing caused 



EARLY EXPERIENCES 5 

some discussion among anglers, and some of 
these discussions found permanent place in 
angling literature. The discussion, however, 
seems always to have been confined to the 
question of position and seems never to have 
been extended to the manner of fishing the flies. 
Individual characteristics or experiences led 
some to advocate a certain manner of manipu- 
lating the dropper-fly and others to recommend 
the sinking of the tail-fly to a greater depth; 
but the flies seem always to have been manipu- 
lated upon the theory that to be effective they 
must be constantly in motion. It seems to 
have been conceded by all that the flies should 
be always under the control and subject to the 
direction of the rod, thus enabling the angler to 
simulate living insects by twitching them over or 
under the surface of the water — a practice that 
is the exact opposite of the method of the dry 
fly fisher, who casts a single fly lightly upon the 
surface of the water and permits it to float with 
the current over or near the spot where he knows 
or believes a fish to lie. 

Many expert wet fly anglers in this country 
have been using the floating fly for years, but 
most of them use it only on water where they 
consider it may prove more effective than the 



6 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 

wet fly — usually upon the quiet surface of a 
pool or on flat, slow water. Contrary to the 
prevailing notion, however, the floating fly is 
not a whit more deadly on water of this charac- 
ter than the wet fly, when the latter is properly 
fished. The difficulty in taking trout on such 
water may be ascribed to two causes: (i) When 
the water is low and clear, or where it has little 
motion and the surface is unruffled, the fish is 
likely to perceive the activities of the angler 
at a greater distance than is possible in rougher 
water, and is thus sooner warned of his approach. 
(2) When the angler has been careful to conceal 
himself from the fish, the fly cast in the usual 
wet fly manner is likely to be refused because 
of its unnatural action, the wake made by 
dragging the flies across the smooth surface 
being sufficient at times to deter even small fish 
from becoming interested in it. The floating 
fly is far more effective than the wet, "jerky" fly, 
because, as no motion is imparted to it, it is 
more lifelike in appearance. When such a fly, 
properly presented, is refused such refusal may 
be due as much to a disinclination upon the 
part of the fish to feed as to his suspicion having 
been aroused. The wet fly fished sunk^ with no 
more motion given to it than is given to the 



EARLY EXPERIENCES 7 

floating one (a single fly being used in each 
case), will prove quite as deadly as the latter on 
smooth water; and where many casts with the 
dry fly may be necessary to induce a rise, the 
sunk fly may appeal upon the first or second 
attempt, because its taking demands of the fish 
no particular exertion. The effort of the angler 
to impart a *' lifelike" motion to the wet fly 
upon the surface will often be quite enough in 
itself to defeat his purpose. Such effort should 
never be made on clear, glassy water, for, while 
it may occasionally be successful, unseen fish 
are put down. 

For many years I was one of those who firmly 
believed that only the smooth, slow stretches of 
a stream could be fished successfully with the 
dry fly. Experience, however, has taught me 
that the floater, skilfully handled, is applicable 
to any part of a swift stream short of a per- 
pendicular waterfall. My unorthodox method 
of using it — which may be described as creating 
a whole family of flies instead of imitating an 
individual member thereof — may be character- 
ised by some as "hammering" or "flogging," 
and condemned as tending to make fish shy 
because the leader is shown so often. My an- 
swer to this is that if the blows struck by the 



8 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 

fly are light no harm is done. And, further- 
more, if showing gut to the fish really tends 
to make them more wary, the sport of taking 
them, in my estimation, is pushed up a peg. 

It is not my purpose to contend that the dry 
fly is more efl^ective than the wet fly, although 
I do believe that, under certain conditions, the 
dry fly will take fish that may not be taken in 
any other manner. I do contend, however, 
that a greater fascination attends its use. All 
game birds are pursued with the same weapon, 
but the more difficult birds to kill have the 
greater attraction for sportsmen; and my pre- 
dilection for the dry fly is based on the same 
principle. 

My first dry fly was cast over the Junction 
Pool — the meeting of the waters of the Wil- 
lowemoc and the Mongaup — about fifteen years 
ago, and the fact that I cast it at all was due 
more to the exigency of the occasion than to 
any predevised plan for attempting the feat. 
Every day in the late afternoon or evening I 
noted four or five fish rising in the pool formed 
by these two streams, and repeated attempts 
upon my part to take one of them by the old 
method absolutely failed me, although I put 
forth diligent efforts. The desire to take one 



EARLY EXPERIENCES 9 

of these fish became an obsession, and their 
constant rising to everything but my flies ex- 
asperated me to the point of wishing that I 
might bring myself to the use of dynamite. 

One evening in looking through my fly book I 
found in one of the pockets a cHpping from the 
Fishing Gazette, which I had placed there during 
the preceding winter. If my memory serves 
me, I think this article was entitled "Casting 
to Rising Fish." At any rate, the caption was 
such that it caught my eye, as it seemed to 
suggest the remedy for which I was searching. 
The article proved to be an account of the 
experience of an angler who used the dry fly 
for trout, and his exposition of the manner of 
using it seemed so clear that I determined to 
try it myself upon the pool over the rising fish 
in the late afternoon. Barring my inability 
to execute properly the things the author 
described and that I was called upon to do, 
the only stumbling-block in my way was the 
impossibility of my obtaining an artificial fly 
that resembled the insects upon which the trout 
were feeding, and the author laid a great deal 
of stress upon the necessity of using such an 
imitation. I remember that, in a measure, I 
was mildly glad of this, because I felt that I 



lo THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 

would have an excuse for failure if I were un- 
successful. I "doctored'* some wet flies into 
what I thought to be a fair imitation of the dry 
fly by tying the wings forward so that they 
stood at right angles to the body, and then 
sallied forth to the pool. On my way to the 
stream I went alternately hot and cold betwixt 
hope and fear. I rehearsed in my mind all the 
things I had to do, and I think I was coldest 
when I thought of having to float the fly. The 
writer had recommended the use of paraffin-oil 
as an aid to buoyancy, and this commodity was 
about as easily procurable in Sullivan County 
at that time as the philosopher's stone; in my 
then frame of mind the latter would probably 
have proven quite as good a buoyant. The pool 
was but a stone's throw from the house, and I 
arrived there in a few minutes, only to find a 
boy disturbing the water by dredging it with a 
worm. Him I lured away with a cake of choco- 
late, sat down to wait for the rise which came 
on shortly, and by the time I was ready there 
were a half dozen good fish feeding on the sur- 
face. I observed two or three sorts of flies 
about and on the water, to none of which my 
poor, mussed-up Queen-of-the-Waters bore the 
slightest resemblance. This did not deter me, 



EARLY EXPERIENCES ii 

however, and I waded boldly out to a posi- 
tion some forty feet below and to the right of 
the pool. My first cast amazed me. The fly 
alighted as gently as a natural insect upon the 
surface, and, watching it as it floated down 
toward the spot where a fish had been rising, I 
saw it disappear, a little bubble being left in 
its place. Instinctively I struck, and to my 
astonishment found that I was fast in a solid 
fish that leaped clear of the water. The leaping 
of this fish was a new experience, as I had never 
seen a trout jump as cleanly from the water. 
After a few flights and a determined rush or 
two I netted him — a rainbow trout just over a 
foot long and the first I had ever taken. This 
variety of trout had been placed in the stream 
a few years before as an experiment, and few 
had been caught. Stowing my prize in my creel, 
I prepared for another attempt as soon as the 
excitement in the pool had subsided. The fly 
I had used was bedraggled and slimy and would 
not float, so I knotted on another. My second 
attempt was as successful as the first, and I 
finally netted, after a tussle, a beautiful native 
trout that weighed a little over one pound. 
Four fine fish fell to my rod that evening, all 
within half an hour, and the fly was taken on 



12 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 

the first cast each time. If such had not been 
the case I doubt very much if I should have suc- 
ceeded, because I am certain that my confidence 
in the method would have been much weakened 
had I failed to take the first fish, and my subse- 
quent attempts might not have been made at 
all, or, if made, would probably have ended in 
failure. 

For several years after my first experience 
with the floating fly I used it in conjunction 
with the wet fly, and until I read Mr. Halford's 
"Dry Fly Fishing," when, recognising his great 
authority and feeling that the last word had 
been said upon the subject, I used the dry fly 
only on such water as I felt he would approve 
of and fished only rising fish. Some time later 
on I read George A. B. Dewar's "Book of the 
Dry Fly." Mr. Dewar says: "I shall endeavour 
to prove in the course of this volume that the 
dry fly is never an aff^ectation, save when re- 
sorted to in the case of brawling, impetuous 
streams of mountainous districts, where it is 
practically impossible of application." Here 
again I felt inclined to listen to the voice of 
authority and felt that I must abandon the 
dry fly. I was accustomed to fish such streams 
as the Beaverkill, Neversink, Willowemoc, and 



EARLY EXPERIENCES 13 

Esopus, in New York; the Brodhead and Sho- 
hola, in Pennsylvania; the Saco and its tribu- 
taries, in New Hampshire, and others of similar 
character — all brawling, impetuous, tumbling 
streams — and it seemed to me that by continu- 
ing to use the dry fly on them I was profaning 
the creed of authority and inviting the wrath 
of his gods upon my head. Since then, how- 
ever, I have continued the use of the dry fly 
on all of these streams, and a number of years 
ago abandoned the use of the wet fly for all 
time. 

Since I began casting the fly over the streams 
of the region I have mentioned their character 
has greatly changed in many particulars, and 
conditions are not the same as they were twenty 
years ago. The natural streams themselves 
have changed; the condition of the water flow- 
ing in them has changed; the sorts of fish in- 
habiting the waters have changed; and the 
methods of taking the fish have changed, or 
should change; and it is to show why this last 
is true that the following pages are written. 

The changes that have taken place in the 
character of our mountain streams may be at- 
tributed to many causes, chief of which, how- 
ever, is the destruction of the timber which at 



14 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 

one time covered the hills through which they 
have their course. During the frequent and 
long-continued droughts the denuded hills, baked 
hard as rock, shed the occasional summer showers 
as readily as the back of the proverbial duck; 
the streams become turbid torrents for a few 
hours, after which they run down, seemingly to 
a lower mark than before. So long as the forests 
covered the watersheds the rains as they fell 
were soaked up by the loose and porous earth 
about the roots of the trees, were cooled in the 
shade of the leaves and branches, and slowly 
percolated into the tiny brooklets through 
which they were fed to the streams for many 
days. Under present conditions the tempera- 
ture of the streams is much higher than for- 
merly, and, while the temperature has seldom 
risen to a point where it has been fatal to the 
fish, it has risen in many streams to a point 
that is distasteful to the native brook-trout 
{Salvelinus fontinalis) . 

It is not unreasonable to assume that the 
heat of the water has a very deleterious effect 
upon the vitality of the fish during certain 
years when the droughts are long sustained 
and, should the condition have existed for a 
great length of time prior to the spawning sea- 



EARLY EXPERIENCES 15 

son, that the progeny for the year would prob- 
ably come into being lacking the vitality neces- 
sary to overcome the attacks of natural ene- 
mies and disease. A bad spawning season, of 
course, reduces the hatch for the year, but is 
ordinarily not noticed by the angler until two 
or three years later, at which time the unusu- 
ally small number of immature fish taken be- 
comes a matter of comment among the fre- 
quenters of the streams. A native angler who 
has made it a practice to visit the spawning- 
grounds of trout for over twenty-five years stated 
to me that during the season of 1910 the redds 
were occupied by trout, but that not a fish 
spawned on any of them in a stretch of nearly 
a mile of the stream which flows past his home 
and which was under his constant observation 
during the entire season. It is difficult for me 
to believe that such a thing could have been 
possible, yet I know the man to be a careful 
and accurate observer, and his statement must 
be given credence. He seemed frightened at 
the prospect and alarm.ed as to the future of 
the stream, and he besought me for an expla- 
nation of the condition — which I was unable to 
give. My diary for that year had been de- 
stroyed, so that I was then, and am now, unable 



l6 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 

to even theorise as to whether or not the failure 
to spawn was due to weather conditions pre- 
vaihng at that time. Let us hope, assuming 
that my informant was not mistaken, that the 
curious condition observed by him was confined 
to the stretch of the stream that he investigated. 
Let us hope, further, that the fish, even in that 
stream, will not become addicted to such an 
ungenerous and unnatural habit. 

Great numbers of trout must be destroyed in 
the periodical freshets that carry masses of ice 
tearing and grinding over the beds of the moun- 
tain streams. When the ice breaks up gradually 
there is very little danger to the fish; but a 
sudden and continued thaw, accompanied by a 
steady fall of warm rain, washes the snow from 
the hillsides, swells the streams into wild tor- 
rents, and rips the very bottom out of them. 
Any one who has witnessed the forming of an 
ice-jam and its final breaking must marvel at 
the possibility of any fish or other living thing 
in its path escaping destruction, so tremendous 
is the upheaval. A few years ago a jam and 
freshet on the Brodhead, besides uprooting 
great trees along the banks, lifted three iron 
bridges within as many miles from their stone 
abutments and carried each of them a hundred 



EARLY EXPERIENCES 17 

yards down-stream, leaving them, finally, mere 
masses of twisted iron. These bridges were 
twelve or fifteen feet above the normal flow of 
the stream, yet, even so, they did not escape de- 
struction. How, then, is it possible for stream 
life to stand against such catastrophe ? Further- 
more, this scouring of the beds of the streams 
by ice and debris carried down during the floods 
undoubtedly destroys great quantities of the 
larvae of the aquatic insects which form an im- 
portant part of the trout's food, and this, too, 
indirectly affects the supply of fish available to 
the angler's rod. After a severe winter and a 
torrential spring there is a noticeable dearth 
of fly upon the water — another of the many 
causes of lament of the fly fisherman of to-day. 
Directly or indirectly, all of the conditions 
above described are the result of the ruthless 
cutting of the timber from the hills. Happily, 
there is reason to hope that these conditions are 
not going to grow worse, because the present 
movement toward the preservation of the for- 
ests seems to be gaining headway; conservation 
of nature's resources will come to be a fixed 
policy of our National and State Governments, 
and if the policy is pushed with vigour and per- 
sistence our children's children may some day 



1 8 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 

see our old familiar streams again singing gaily 
through great woods like those our fathers knew. 
With the elements, man, beast, and bird all 
intent upon its destruction, it is a marvel that 
our native brook-trout survives. But live on 
he does, though his numbers constantly de- 
crease. The great gaps left in his ranks are 
being filled by the alien brown trout — his equal 
in every respect but that of beauty. True, 
there is a wide difference of opinion in this par- 
ticular, and there are some who will go so far 
as to say that the brown trout is, all round, the 
better fish for the angler. When feeding he 
takes the fly quite as freely as the native trout, 
leaps vigorously when hooked, grows rapidly to 
a large size, and seems better able to withstand 
abnormal changes in the temperature of the 
water, which are so often fatal to Jontinalis. No 
one deplores the scarcity of our own beautiful 
fish more than I do; but we must not be blind 
to the facts that the brown trout is a game-fish, 
that he is in our streams and there to stay, and 
that our streams are suited to him. He is a 
fish of moods and often seems less willing to 
feed than the native trout; but for that reason 
alone, if for no other, I would consider him the 
sportier fish. When both varieties are taking 



EARLY EXPERIENCES 19 

freely and their fighting quaUties compared, it 
is not easy to decide which is the gamer. The 
leaping of the brown trout is often more im- 
pressive than the determined resistance of the 
native trout, and the taking of a particularly 
active or particularly sluggish fish of either 
variety is frequently made the basis for an 
opinion. It seems to me that, in any event, the 
taking of even a single fair fish of either variety 
on the fly is an achievement to be put down as 
a distinct credit to the angler's skill and some- 
thing to be proud of and to remember. Our 
native brook-trout is much loved of man. It 
has come to be something more than a fish: 
it is an ideal. It will always hold first place in 
the hearts of many anglers. I fear, however, 
that it must yield first place in the streams to 
its European contemporary, he having been 
endowed by nature with a constitution fitted to 
contend against existing conditions and sur- 
vive. 

My many years' experience upon the streams 
of New York and Pennsylvania have brought 
me to realise that changed conditions call for 
an expertness of skill and knowledge that 
anglers of the past generation did very well 
without. The streams now are smaller, the fish 



20 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 

in them fewer and warier, and the difficulties of 
the angler who would take them greater. Three 
flies fished down-stream may still be a permis- 
sible method for those who pursue the trout of 
the wilderness, but the sportsman should now be 
willing to adopt the use of the single light sur- 
face fly when pursuing the trout of our domestic 
waters; and, if he does adopt it, as he gains in 
skill he will come at last to realise that it has a 
virtue not possessed by its wet brother. I can 
illustrate my point best by quoting an experi- 
ence of my own that happened several years 
ago. 

One day, while fishing an up-State stream, 
I met a dear old clergyman, who, after watch- 
ing me for a long time, came up and said: 
"Young man, I have fished this stream for 
nearly forty years, and they will tell you at 
the house that I have been accounted as good 
as any man who ever fished here with a fly. I 
have killed some fine fish, too; but in all that 
time I have never been able to take trout as 
regularly as you have taken them in the few 
days you have been here. I am told that you 
use the dry fly and have some particular pat- 
terns. If it is not asking too much, will you 
be good enough to give me their names and 



EARLY EXPERIENCES 21 

tell me where they may be obtained?" I gave 
him the information he asked, and volunteered 
some instruction by pointing out that his gear 
was not suitable for the work, convincing him 
that such was the case by placing my own rod 
in his hands. We sat in the shade for a couple 
of hours exchanging ideas, and to prove or 
explode a theory of mine he agreed to fish a 
certain pool with me later in the day. He used 
my rod and rose and killed a brown trout of 
one pound five ounces, a little later leaving the 
fly in a heavier fish. He was an expert at plac- 
ing the fly, but, not being used to the stiffer 
rod and lighter gut, he struck too hard, with the 
resultant smash. Being a good angler, he easily 
overcame this difficulty. He now fishes only 
with a rod of fine action and power, which en- 
ables him to place his fly easily, delicately, and 
accurately a greater distance than was possible 
with the "weeping" rod he formerly used. 
This he abandoned once and for all, and with it 
the wet fly. He came into the knowledge and 
enjoyment of the dry fly method, and he has 
since then frankly admitted to me that he 
greatly regretted having realised so late in life 
that the actual taking of trout constitutes but 
a very small part of the joy of fly fishing. 



CHAPTER II 

THE VALUE OF OBSERVATION 

Several years ago I was looking on at a 
tennis match between the champion of America 
and one of the best men England ever sent to 
this country, and as I watched their play I 
could not help but marvel at the accuracy with 
which the players placed their shots. Their 
drives were wonderful for direction and speed. 
On nearly every return the ball barely cleared 
the net and was seldom more than a few inches 
above the top as it passed over. A friend who 
knew many of the experts told me how they 
attained to their remarkable precision. It was 
the custom of many of them, he said, when pre- 
paring for the big matches, to practise for ac- 
curacy by driving the ball against a wall. He 
said this was particularly true of the American 
champion, and that it was not unusual for him 
to use up a dozen or more balls in a day's prac- 
tice. The wall had painted across its face a 
line of contrasting colour at a height from the 
ground equivalent to that of the top of a regu- 



THE VALUE OF OBSERVATION 23 

lation tennis net, and upon the line were painted 
a number of disks about ten inches in diameter. 
Standing at a distance from the wall equivalent 
to the distance of the base-line of a regulation 
tennis-court from the net, the player would 
return the ball on its rebound from the wall, 
striving each time to so place it that it would 
strike just above the line. The accomplish- 
ment of a satisfactory score after a succession 
of drives would convince the player that he had 
good control of his stroke, and he would then 
turn his attention to the disks, against each of 
which he would drive twenty or more shots, 
taking them in turn and keeping a record of 
hits in each case. The accuracy developed by 
such practice was truly remarkable, and I hes- 
itate to mention the number of times in succes- 
sion one expert made clean hits — it seemed an 
incredible number. 

I have seen golfers practising the weak places 
in their game for hours with as much zeal and 
earnestness as if they were playing a match, 
and a polo player of my acquaintance practises 
his strokes upon a field at his home, riding 
his ponies as daringly and recklessly as though 
a championship depended upon his efforts. 
The devotees of these and similar active sports 



24 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 

are keenly alive to the necessity of constant 
practice, that spirit of competition which is so 
much a part of them making any endeavour 
that will aid toward high efficiency, or improve 
game or form, seem worth while. And in all 
sports, particularly those in which the com- 
petition is individual, whenever and wherever 
opportunity presents itself there will be found 
hundreds of enthusiasts following every play 
of the expert, keenly studying his method, ob- 
serving his form, and absorbing and storing 
the knowledge so gained for their own practice 
later on court or field. So, too, even though 
competition has no place in fly fishing, and 
should have none, the angler ought to strive 
always to "play a good game.'* He should 
practise the tactics of his art with the same zeal 
as do the followers of competitive sports if he 
hopes ever to become an expert fly fisherman 
in the highest sense of that much misused term. 
The casual angler who looks upon fishing as 
merely incidental to his periods of recreation, 
during which his chief concern is the recupera- 
tion of tired brain and unstrung nerves, may 
feel that he is making a business of his pleasure 
by devoting much time to the study of his an- 
gling. In a measure, this is true, and it would 



THE VALUE OF OBSERVATION 25 

be asking much, indeed, of him who thinks of 
fly fishing only as a pastime. But to him who 
realises that it is a sport — a sport that is also 
an art — there is no incident, complex or simple, 
that is unworthy of his attention and consider- 
ation. No sport affords a greater field for ob- 
servation and study than fly fishing, and it is 
the close attention paid to the minor happenings 
upon the stream that marks the finished angler. 
The careless angler frequently overlooks in- 
cidents, or looks upon them as merely trivial, 
from which he might learn much if he would but 
realise their meaning at the time. 

Of greatest importance to the dry fly angler 
is that mastery of the rod and line that enables 
him to place his fly lightly and accurately upon 
the water. I venture to assert that one who 
has had the advantage of expert instruction in 
handling a rod, and is thereby qualified to de- 
liver a fly properly, will raise more trout upon his 
first attempt at fishing a stream than another 
who, though he knows thoroughly the haunts 
and habits of the fish, casts indifferently. The 
contrast between the instructed novice and the 
uninstructed veteran would be particularly no- 
ticeable were they to cast together over the 
same water in which fish were rising freely. 



26 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 

Whether or not the novice would take more 
fish than the veteran is another question. Lack- 
ing experience, the novice would probably hook 
few fish and land fewer. But he would be 
starting right, and the necessity of overcoming 
later on that bad form likely to be acquired by 
all who begin without competent instruction 
would be eliminated, and the stream knowledge 
of the veteran would come to him in time. 

The beginner should watch the expert at 
work and should study particularly the action 
of the rod. He should note that the power 
which impels the line forward starts from the 
butt, travels the entire length of the rod, is 
applied by a slight forward push rather than by 
a long sweep, and ends in a distinct snap. He 
will soon learn that the wrist must do the real 
work, and no better scheme for teaching this 
has ever been devised than the time-honoured 
one of holding a fly book or a stone between 
the casting arm and the body. The proper 
action of the rod will be best learned if he fasten 
that part of the butt below the reel to the fore- 
arm with a piece of string, a strap of leather, or 
a stout rubber band, the effect of which device 
will be to stop the rod in an almost perpen- 
dicular position when the line is retrieved. The 



THE VALUE OF OBSERVATION 27 

pull of the line as it straightens out behind him 
will be distinctly felt, will give him a good idea 
of the power and action of his rod, and serve 
as a signal for the forward cast. He should 
practise casting as often as his spare time 
will allow — over water when possible, but over 
grass if necessary. He should not wait until 
the stream is reached and actual fishing prob- 
lems begin to press upon his notice for solu- 
tion. His mind will then be occupied with 
many other things; hence, the knack of han- 
dling the rod should have been already acquired. 
After the beginner is satisfied that he can 
properly place and deliver his fly he should 
turn his attention to the study of the fish and 
the currents of the stream. If he has been a 
wet fly angler his experiences will stand him in 
good stead, as it will qualify him to locate the 
likely haunts of the fish. Long and varied 
though his experience may have been, however, 
the use of the dry fly will open avenues of ob- 
servation and knowledge that were hidden from 
him while he practised the old method. My 
own experience is responsible for this rather 
broad statement, but not until after I had be- 
come an ardent advocate of the dry fly, and had 
abandoned the wet fly for good and all, did I 



28 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 

realise the truth of it. In the beginning I was 
ever on the alert for rising fish, and, instead of 
boldly assailing promising water, wasted much 
time, on many occasions, scrutinising the water 
for some indication that a fish was feeding. In 
this way I frequently discovered non-feeding 
fish lying in places where I had not expected to 
find them. Such fish were then the more easily 
approached because I was able to assume a 
position myself that would not disclose my 
presence. Just as frequently, too, I have seen 
fine fish cruising about, and have taken many 
that might have been driven away by the slight- 
est movement on my part. In many cases 
I have been compelled to remain absolutely 
motionless for ten or fifteen minutes before a 
fish would come to rest long enough to make 
worth while an attempt to get a fly to it. Nearly 
every time, too, that a fish has been hooked I 
have seen it actually take the fly — an action 
always instructive, because fish vary greatly in 
their manner of taking, and interesting, be- 
cause in it lies one of the real charms of fly 
fishing. 

The continued use of a floating fly upon 
water where the angler sees no indication of 
feeding fish, but where experience tells him that 



THE VALUE OF OBSERVATION 29 

they may lie, seems to develop in him a remark- 
able keenness of vision. This is a direct re- 
sult, perhaps, of the attention which he gives 
to his fly. My own experience is that while I 
am watching my fly float down-stream some 
stone of irregular formation, peculiar colour, 
or difference in size from others about it, lying 
upon the bottom, arrests my eye, with the effect 
of making the water appear shallower or clearer 
than it really is. My fly appears to be the 
centre of a small area upon the surface of the 
water through which everything is seen as 
clearly as through a water-glass, the shadow of 
the fly itself upon the bottom often being plainly 
discernible. Anglers who fish the dry fly learn 
to identify the living shadow that appears sud- 
denly under the fly as a trout ready to take it 
on its next drift down-stream, and to recognise 
a fish as it sidles out from the bank or swings 
uncertainly toward the fly just as it passes the 
boulder that shelters him. In either case an 
interesting opportunity is afforded, particularly 
for exercising a very necessary attribute — self- 
control. 

It may be that many happenings I now see 
Upon the stream passed unnoticed when I used 
the wet fly because of some lack of concen- 



30 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 

tration and observation. If this be so, I have 
the newer method to thank for the development 
of those faculties. I have learned not to over- 
look a single minor happening. Perhaps my 
keenness to ascribe some meaning to the slight- 
est incident has resulted in the building of many- 
very fine structures of theory and dogma upon 
poor foundations. This may be true, but I am 
certain that their weaknesses have always be- 
come apparent to me in time; and, on the other 
hand, I am just as certain that I have been 
greatly benefited by my habit of close attention 
to the little things that happen on the stream. 
For instance, I cherished the belief for many 
years that one advantage of up-stream fishing 
lay in the fact that when the fly was taken the 
hook was driven into the fish's mouth instead 
of being pulled away, as in down-stream fishing. 
I thought this to be one of the strongest argu- 
ments in favour of up-stream fishing, and, theo- 
retically, it is. But I know now that many 
fish that take a floating fly do so when they 
are headed down-stream. While there are still 
many reasons why up-stream fishing is the better 
method, this particular argument no longer has 
weight with me. 

As I remember it, the strongest admonition 



THE VALUE OF OBSERVATION 31 

of my early schooling on the stream was never 
to remain long in one place. I was taught to 
believe that if a rise was not effected on the 
first few casts subsequent effort on that water 
was wasted — that the trout would take the fly 
at once or not at all. I clung to this belief for 
years, until one day I saw a fine fish lying in 
shallow water and took him after casting a 
dozen or more times. Since then I have taken 
fish after upward of fifty casts, and I rarely 
abandon an attempt for one that I can see if 
I feel certain that it has not discovered me. 
Even when I have not actually seen a fish, but 
have known or believed one to be lying near by, 
the practice has proven effective. Thus I have 
had the satisfaction of accomplishing a thing 
once believed to be impossible; but I have 
gained more than that: I have learned to be 
persevering and, what is still more important, 
deliberate. The man who hurries through a 
trout stream defeats himself. Not only does he 
take few fish but he has no time for observation, 
and his experience is likely to be of little value 
to him. 

The beginner must learn to look with eyes 
that see. Occurrences of apparently little im- 
portance at the moment may, after considera- 



32 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 

tion, assume proportions of great value. The 
taking of an insect, for instance, may mean 
nothing more than a rising trout; but the posi- 
tion occupied by this fish may indicate the 
position taken by others in similar water. The 
flash of a trout, changing his position prepara- 
tory to investigating the angler's fly, will fre- 
quently disclose the spot occupied by him before 
he changed his position; and, later on, when the 
fish are not in the keenest mood for feeding, a 
fly presented there accurately may bring a rise. 
The quick dart up-stream of a small trout from 
the tail of a pool is a pretty fair indication that 
a large fish occupies the deeper water above; 
it indicates just as certainly, however, that the 
angler has little chance of taking him, the ex- 
citement of the smaller fish having probably 
been communicated to his big relative. 

The backwater formed by a swift current on 
the up-stream side of a boulder is- a favourite 
lurking-place of brown trout. I was fishing 
such places one day, and found the trout oc- 
cupying them and in rather a taking mood. 
In approaching a boulder which looked particu- 
larly inviting, and while preparing to deliver my 
fly, I was amazed to see the tail and half the 
body of a fine trout out of the water at the side 



THE VALUE OF OBSERVATION 33 

of the rock. For a moment I could not believe 
that I had seen a fish — the movement was so 
deliberate — and I came to the conclusion that it 
was fancy or that a water-snake, gliding across 
the stream, had shown itself. Almost immedi- 
ately, however, I saw the flash of a trout as he 
left the backwater and dashed pell-mell into 
the swift water at the side of the boulder. 
Down-stream he came until he was eight or ten 
feet below the rock, when, turning sharply and 
rising to the surface, he took from it some in- 
sect that I could not see. Up-stream again he 
went, and shortly resumed his position in the 
dead water, showing half his body as he stemmed 
the current at the side of the rock. Once more 
this performance was repeated, and I knew I 
had stumbled upon an interesting experience. 
Hastily measuring the distance, hoping to get 
my fly to him before some natural insect might 
excite him to give another exhibition of gym- 
nastic feeding, I dropped it about three feet 
above him, and, contrary to my usual method 
of retrieving it as it floated past the up-stream 
side of the boulder, I permitted it to come down 
riding the top of the wave, when the same flash 
came as the trout dashed after it. The fish 
could be plainly seen almost directly under the 



34 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 

fly. As it reached the rapidly flattening water 
below the rock, he turned and took it viciously, 
immediately darting up-stream again. He was 
soundly hooked, however, and I netted a fine 
fish lacking one ounce of being a pound and a 
half. My experience heretofore had been that 
if a fly were placed a yard or so above this point 
and allowed to float down to the rock a feeding 
fish would rush forward — often as much as two 
feet — and take it, immediately turning or back- 
ing into his position again. I had assumed from 
this observation that when the fly passed the 
rock or backwater without a rise it should be 
retrieved and another try made. This fish sat- 
isfied me, however, that when really feeding, or 
when inclined to feed, trout may be lured com- 
paratively long distances by inviting looking 
morsels. Either he did not decide to take the 
fly until just as it was passing him or else he 
liked the exercise of the chase. In any event, 
he was not peculiar in his habit, because four 
more fish were taken in the same manner the 
same day. 

In most cases when the fly is cast above a 
boulder lying in swift water (which I consider, 
under certain conditions, one of the best places 
to look for brown trout) it wiU be taken as it 



THE VALUE OF OBSERVATION 35 

approaches the rock, the trout darting out and 
retiring immediately to avoid being caught in 
the swifter water on either side of his strong- 
hold. But if it is not taken, and is permitted 
to float down with the current, it may bring a 
response. 

It was a somewhat similar observation which 
prompted the practice and, I must say, rather 
dubious development of what some of my friends 
are pleased to call the "fluttering" or *' bounce" 
cast. This cast is supposed to represent the 
action of a fluttering insect, the fly merely 
alighting upon the water, rising, alighting again, 
repeating the movement three or four times at 
most; finally coming to rest and being allowed 
to float down-stream. It rarely comes off, but 
when it does it is deadly; and, for the good of 
the sport, I am glad that it is difficult, though 
sorry, too, for the pleasure of accomplishing it 
successfully is really greater than that of taking 
fish with it. The cast is made with a very 
short line — never over twenty-five feet — and 
the fly alone touches the water. The action of 
the fly is very similar to that produced by 
the method known as "dapping," but instead of 
being merely dangled from the rod, as is the 
case when "dapping," the fly is actually cast. 



36 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 

It should be permitted to float as far as it will 
after its fluttering or skipping has ceased. The 
beginner practising the cast will do well to 
cast at right angles to the current, and he should 
choose rather fast water for his experimenting. 
The speed of the water will cause the fly to 
jump, and the action it should have will be the 
more readily simulated than if the first attempts 
are made on slow water. 

I had made a flying trip to the Brodhead, 
and, with that strange fatality which seems so 
often to attend the unfortunate angler rushing 
off for a week-end in the early season, found the 
stream abnormally high and horrible weather 
prevailing. After many attempts to get into 
the stream, with results equally disastrous to 
my clothing and temper, I abandoned all idea 
of wading and walked and crawled along the 
bank, casting my fly wherever I could but 
rarely finding good water that could be reached, 
and rising but a few small fish. As there was 
a gale blowing in my face directly down-stream, 
it was practically impossible to place a fly where 
I wished with any delicacy, and I decided to 
abandon the sport after trying a pool just above 
me that I knew contained big fish. My first 
cast on this water, made during a lull, fell 



THE VALUE OF OBSERVATION 37 

lightly, but brought no response, and after a 
further half dozen fruitless attempts I began to 
think of the fine log fire at the house. I made 
one more cast, however, this time in the teeth 
of the wind. Using but twenty-five feet of line 
and a short leader, I was able to straighten both 
in the air. The wind kept all suspended for an 
instant, the fly, accompanied by a small part of 
the leader, finally falling upon the water, where 
it remained but a fraction of a second, the 
wind whisking it off and laying it down a foot 
away. This happened five or six times as the 
fly came down-stream, and during the time it 
was travelling a distance of not over eight or 
ten feet five trout, each apparently over a pound 
in weight, rose to it, but missed because it was 
plucked away by the wind just in time to save 
them. I did not get one of them, and, as it was 
practically impossible to continue casting under 
the prevailing conditions, I left the stream. It 
was brought home solidly to me that day, how- 
ever, that it was the action of the fly alone that 
moved the fish — and my day was not badly 
spent. I cannot say as much of the many other 
days since then that I have spent in what I feel 
were rather foolish attempts to imitate the effect 
produced by the wind on that day. 



38 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 

The study of the positions taken by big fish 
when they are feeding, and those which they 
occupy when they are not, is an important part 
of the education of the fly fisher. Each time 
the angler takes a good fish or sees one feeding, 
if he will note in his diary its position, the con- 
dition of the water, temperature, atmosphere, 
time of day, and the insect being taken, he 
will soon have an accumulation of data from 
which he may learn how to plan a campaign 
against particular fish at other times. Ex- 
tremely interesting in itself, the study of insects 
is of great value to the angler in his attempts 
at imitation, and the information gleaned from 
autopsy might not be acquired in any other 
manner. 

It may be said to be an axiom of the fly fisher 
that where a small trout is seen feeding rarely 
need a large one be looked for. But the actions 
of a small fish in sight may sometimes indicate 
the presence of a larger one unseen. The tak- 
ing of a fine trout on a certain stream in Sulli- 
van County, on August 27, 1906, after one of 
those long periods of drought so common in 
recent years, convinced me of this. I had been 
waiting for even a slight fall of rain, and, quite 
a heavy shower having come up the evening 



THE VALUE OF OBSERVATION 39 

before, I started for this stream. Upon my 
arrival there I was surprised to learn that not a 
drop of rain had fallen in weeks, and that the 
shower which had been heavy twenty miles 
away had not reached the vicinity. While 
driving from the station to the house at which 
I was to stop, along a road that paralleled the 
stream, the many glimpses I had of the latter 
filled me with misgivings. At one point the 
stream and road are very near each other, and, 
stopping my driver, I got out to look at a 
famous pool below a dam which had long out- 
lived its usefulness. It was a sizzling-hot day, 
and at that time — eleven o'clock — the sun was 
almost directly overhead; yet in the crystal- 
clear water of this pool, with not a particle of 
shade to cover him, lay a native trout fourteen 
inches in length which afterward proved to 
weigh one pound three ounces. Too fine a fish, 
I thought, as I clambered back into the carriage, 
to be occupying such a place in broad daylight, 
and I promised myself to try for him later in 
the afternoon. Returning about six o'clock, I 
found him in the same position, and during the 
full twenty minutes I watched him, while he 
appeared to be nervously alert, he never moved. 
Notwithstanding the fact that everything was 



40 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 

against me, and knowing that the chances were 
more than even that the fish would see me, my 
rod, or my line, I made my plans for approach- 
ing him; yet, busy as I was, I could not rid my 
mind of this ever-recurring thought: with all 
the known aversion of his kind to heat, and their 
love of dark nooks, why was this fish out in 
this place on such a day? Why did he not find 
a place under the cool shade of the dam ? With 
the instinct strong within him to protect him- 
self by hiding, the impulse must have been 
much stronger that forced him to take so con- 
spicuous a stand — a mark to the animals which 
prey upon his kind. As there were absolutely 
no insects upon the water, and scarcely enough 
current to bring food of other sort to him, he 
could not have been feeding. The only reason, 
then, to account for his being there — the thought 
struck me forcibly enough — was his fear of a 
bigger fish. The logical conclusion was that if 
a fish of his inches (no mean adversary) exposed 
himself so recklessly the one that bullied him 
must be quite solid. I tested this fellow^s ap- 
petite with a small, pinkish-bodied fly of my 
own invention, and, standing about forty feet 
below and considerably to the left, dropped it 
three or four feet above him; but, although it 



THE VALUE OF OBSERVATION 41 

was certain he could see the fly, he made no 
attempt to go forward and take it. As it 
neared him, however, he rushed excitedly to the 
right and then to the left, taking the fly as it 
came directly over him, and, before I could 
realise what had happened, came down-stream 
toward me at a great rate. As he was securely 
hooked, I kept him coming, and netted him 
quietly at the lip of the pool. 

That this fish did not take the fly the instant 
it fell meant to me that he was afraid to go for- 
ward into the deeper water which harboured his 
larger fellow; and his action as the fly appeared 
over him meant that, while he wanted it badly 
enough, he would not risk an altercation with 
the other, which might also have seen it. When 
he did finally decide that the coast was clear, 
he took it quickly and rushed down toward 
the shallower water where he might be secure 
against sudden attack. 

If some of the theories developed in those 
few moments appear fanciful, it must be re- 
membered that my mind was occupied with the 
thought that the pool contained a larger fish, 
and the conclusions based upon the subse- 
quent actions of this smaller one only tended to 
strengthen this belief. Fanciful or not, I was 



42 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 

rewarded a few minutes later by the sight of a 
monster tail breaking the surface just under 
the water that trickled over the apron of the 
dam. Having prepared a gossamer leader, pre- 
ferring to risk a smash to not getting a rise, 
I dropped a small Silver Sedge — which I used 
because it could be more plainly kept in sight — 
almost immediately in the swirl and was at 
once fast in a lusty fish. After many abortive 
attempts to lead him into the diminutive net I 
had with me, I flung the thing, in disgust, into 
the woods. I finally beached the fish and lifted 
him out in my hand. He was a fine brown 
trout, eighteen and three quarter inches in length, 
and weighed, the next morning, two pounds 
nine ounces. 

While I was engaged with this fish another 
rose in practically the same spot under the 
apron of the dam. Hurriedly replacing the be- 
draggled fly with a new one, I waited for the 
trout to show himself, which he did presently, 
and again I was fast — this time in one of the 
best fish I have ever seen in these waters. It 
seemed an interminable length of time, though 
probably not over ten minutes, that I was en- 
gaged with this one, and it was impossible to 
move him; he kept alternately boring in toward 



THE VALUE OF OBSERVATION 43 

the dam and sulking. In one of the latter fits 
I urged him toward me somewhat too strongly, 
and he was off. Immediately I was afforded a 
sight of what I had lost as he leaped clear of 
the water in an evident endeavour to dislodge 
the thing that had fastened to his jaw. The 
smash made as he struck the water still resounds 
in my ear, and when I say that this fish would 
have gone close to five pounds I but exercise 
the right to that license accorded all anglers who 
attempt to describe the size of the big ones that 
get away. Having one good fish in my creel, 
however, I really had some basis for my cal- 
culation — at any rate, he was one of the best 
fish I have ever risen. Examining my leader, 
I found it had not broken, but the telltale curl 
at the end proved that, in the fast-gathering 
gloom, I had been careless in knotting on the 
fly. 



CHAPTER III 



THE RISE 



Any disturbance of the surface made by a 
trout is usually referred to as a "rise," but the 
characterisation is erroneous except where it 
is applied to fish feeding upon the surface. 
Rising fish are the delight of the dry fly fisher, 
but are really the easiest fish to take — pro- 
vided, always, that no error is made in the pres- 
entation of the fly. The angler is called upon 
to exhibit a fine skill in casting, a knowledge of 
the insect upon which the fish is feeding, and 
to make the proper selection of an imitation; 
but he is aided materially by being apprised 
of the location of the fish, and is further helped 
by the knowledge that he is throwing to a 
willing one. 

The study of the habits of rising fish, or, to 
use a more inclusive term, feeding fish — be- 
cause a feeding fish may not be a rising one — 
is of the utmost importance to the dry fly en- 
thusiast, who knows how difficult it is to induce 
a fish feeding on or near the bottom to rise to 
his floater. 

44 



THE RISE 



45 



Inasmuch as the principal literature avail- 
able on this delightful branch of angling is the 
work of Englishmen who have, with unfailing 
unanimity, used the same terms in describing 
the positions and actions of feeding fish, it 
would be unwise to attempt to employ others, 
and for that reason I have made use of them 
throughout this chapter. 

Compared with our swift-flowing waters, the 
gentle, slow-moving, chalk streams of Southern 
England offer greater advantages to students 
of the habits of feeding fish, not only because of 
the greater deliberation with which the trout se- 
cures his food in them but also because a greater 
number of aquatic insects contribute to his 
sustenance there than are found on our swift 
streams; consequently, the English student has 
far greater opportunity for observation. The 
water-weeds grow so heavily on these English 
streams that at times it is found necessary to 
cut them out to some extent if fly fishing is to 
be pursued. These weeds harbour great num- 
bers of snails, shrimps, larvae, etc., of which the 
trout are inordinately fond, and when the fish 
are seeking this luscious fare the trials of the 
angler fishing with a floating fly are, indeed, 
many. Trout feeding in this manner are de- 



46 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 

scribed as "tailing" fish, from the fact that the 
tail of the fish is observed breaking the surface 
of the water violently or gently, as the case may 
demand, in his efforts to secure or dislodge his 
prey. Heavy weed growth being unusual on 
our swift streams, the trout do not have the 
same opportunity to feed in the manner de- 
scribed as their English cousins, and, conse- 
quently, the American fly fisherman is not par- 
ticularly interested in tailing fish; but it must 
not be forgotten that caddis larvae abound in 
our waters, and that trout occasionally pick up 
crawfish, snails, and other Crustacea and Mol- 
lusca from the bottom, usually in the less rapid 
parts of the stream. Fish so feeding do break 
the surface with their tails, and, even though 
the tail be not actually seen, the action of this 
fin in maintaining the fish's equilibrium causes 
a swirl which is often mistaken for a rise. A 
trout often shows his tail in rapid water but 
this is occasioned by the necessity of forcing 
his head down to overcome the force of the 
current after he has taken food of some sort 
upon the surface or just below it, and the action 
must not be confused with that of a fish feeding 
upon the bottom in the more quiet stretches. 
The term "bulging" is applied to fish that 



THE RISE 47 

are feeding below the surface upon the nymphae 
of insects about to undergo the metamorphosis 
which produces the winged fly. The trout is a 
very busy fellow at this time, and covers left, 
centre, and right field with equal facility; but 
he occasionally misses, and at the instant of 
his viciously breaking the surface of the water 
the insect may be seen taking its laboured flight 
— escaping by a hair's breadth the death which 
pursued it. When trout are feeding in this 
manner the angler's patience is taxed to the 
utmost, and after a succession of flies has been 
tried without success the discomfited angler 
may be excused if he concludes that his arti- 
ficial is not a good imitation. He may not be 
far wrong. 

Although aside from the main subject of dry 
fly fishing, I will in this connection attempt to 
show how the sunk fly may be used successfully 
against the "bulger." As the nymph is still 
enclosed in its shuck, or case, it is quite obvious 
that an artificial fly made with wings is not 
an imitation of it. Consequently, a hackle-fly 
should be used even though it, too, is a poor 
imitation. A suggestion of the general hue of 
the natural is quite sufficient. The cast is 
made some distance above the feeding fish, so 



48 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 

that the fly will approach the trout approxi- 
mately as the nymph would, i. e., under water 
and rising. If no attempt be made to impart 
motion the fly drifting with the current will be 
more natural in its action than the angler can 
hope to make it appear by manipulation. Be- 
sides, the trout is an excellent judge of pace, and, 
making for a natural looking morsel, is sorely 
disappointed and not likely to come again if it 
is jerked away from him at the moment he is 
about to take it. One fly only should be used, 
and quite as much care is required in its de- 
livery as would be necessary were a floating fly 
being presented. Errors made in casting are 
more readily concealed by the current in the 
case of the sunk fly. 

When the attention of the fish Is fixed upon 
insects beneath the surface it is difficult to at- 
tract his notice to a floating fly, except, perhaps, 
at such times as the fly appears before him 
when he is close to the surface; but it can be 
done — and in two ways. Fish so feeding are 
moving about, darting here and there taking 
nymphae. A swirl made by the fish in all likeli- 
hood only marks the place where he was, and 
he may be a yard or more up-stream, or to right 
or left, where he went to secure the nymph. If 



THE RISE 49 

the swirl is made by his tail at the time he 
starts for the insect and not at the moment 
he takes it, there is little knowledge as to his 
actual position to be gained from the distur- 
bance; the only indication is that he is feeding. 
The angler must be able to distinguish between 
the disturbance made by a bulger feeding under 
water and that made by a fish taking a winged 
insect upon the surface — often not a very diffi- 
cult thing to do — and he must conduct his cam- 
paign accordingly. The signs of the surface- 
feeding fish are easily discernible to the quick 
eye. The gentle rise in slow water, or the 
swifter rush where the fly is in the current, 
starts a ripple immediately from the centre 
made by the nose or mouth of the fish, and, of 
course, is unmistakable where the actual taking 
of the insect is seen. In all cases the surface is 
broken. The commotion made by the bulging 
fish is started under water, and, while the dis- 
turbance is ultimately seen upon the surface, 
the form it assumes is more of a swirl or boil 
and is quite unlike the concentric rings that 
mark the actual breaking of the surface. 

Occasionally, as I have said, the "fielder muff^s 
the fly," and this is the moment that, if the 
angler be alert, an artificial fly dropped im- 



50 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 

mediately over the fish is likely to meet with a 
hearty welcome. I am convinced that a trout 
that misses his prey in this manner frequently 
stays on the spot where he lost it long enough 
to give the angler an opportunity to present 
his fly, if he is within striking distance — and 
ready. He must be prompt in making his 
throw, however, because the fish may have his 
attention attracted elsewhere at any moment. 
If a rise be not effected at once the angler 
should not try again immediately, because the 
possibility of the fish having left his position, 
or of having been scared by the line, or of 
frightening another which may have come be- 
tween, is too great to make the attempt worth 
while. 

When fish are feeding all over the pool, and 
the angler is impatient and not content to stand 
idly by waiting for an opportunity such as de- 
scribed, let him try the following method: He 
should look the water over carefully, keep out 
of it if possible, and choose the spot where the 
fly is to be placed. Knowledge of the water 
and of the habits of the fish will guide him in 
this choice, but he should not cast to the swirl. 
Having chosen his water, which should be to- 
ward the head of the pool, not much above its 



THE RISE 51 

centre, and preferably where the current will 
carry the fly down faster than the leader (the 
choice being governed naturally by the char- 
acter of the stretch), he should place his fly some 
distance— a yard or two— ahead of the swirl 
and a foot or two to the side nearest him, al- 
lowing it to float down eight or ten feet; if no 
rise is effected he should place his fly in the 
same spot again and again until he has made 
twenty-five casts or more. It is important that 
each cast should be executed with the same pre- 
cision and delicacy as marked the first attempt. 

The method is based upon the theory that a 
feeding trout — or even one that is not feeding, 
for that matter — may be induced to take up a 
position in line with the direction in which the 
angler's fly is travelling, under the belief that 
flies are coming down-stream in such quantities 
as to make them worth investigating. Once 
this position is compelled it is only a question 
of time and patience upon the part of the angler. 
The trout will rise eventually to one of this 
"hatch." The angler cannot hope to have this 
coup come off^, however, if he has made any 
mistake in his casting or has shown himself or 
his rod. 

The beginner practising the method will 



52 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 

find it most difficult to restrain an almost un- 
controllable impulse to leave off casting in 
the one spot in order to place his fly over the 
swirl made by some other fish. If he gives 
way to that impulse he courts failure — and 
down comes the house he is building. It is 
quite likely that a trout is preparing to investi- 
gate the "hatch" at the very moment the angler 
changes his water, and, of course, will be fright- 
ened away by seeing the rod or the line which 
is thrown over it to the other fish. The method 
usually employed by the novice is productive of 
nothing. Because many feeding fish are seen, 
he hurriedly casts over this one, then over that 
one, in the hope that his fly will be taken, and 
finally gives up in despair when his hope is not 
realised. 

If a mistake unfortunately occurs — the dan- 
ger of which naturally increases in proportion 
to the number of casts made — it is quite useless 
to carry the attempt further. The angler should 
retire for a few moments or continue a bit far- 
ther up or down stream, selecting a spot some 
distance from where he began, and always 
bearing in mind the necessity for throwing 
above and to the near side of the swirl. If no 
mistake is made the chances are at least even 



THE RISE 53 

that those early evening "rises" which have so 
long mocked his skill may show a profit. The 
angler, however, may spend a profitable quarter 
hour watching the insects upon the water or 
rising from it, and catching some for closer 
examination. During this time, if there is a 
cessation of swirls, as there likely will be, it 
indicates that the nymphae are becoming 
fewer and that, the "hatch" being over for the 
present, his last chance has come for a try 
at the bulgers. He should proceed, as be- 
fore, to create his artificial "hatch," and he 
will have even a better chance of success because 
the attention of the trout will be less occupied. 

In selecting water in which to place the fly, in 
order to take bulging fish by the method I have 
suggested, the angler will do well to choose that 
where the current is swift but the surface un- 
broken; and too much stress cannot be laid upon 
the importance of having the fly float down as 
nearly as possible in the same lane and position 
each time. When the trout have ceased feed- 
ing upon the nymphae his opportunity for cast- 
ing to fish that are really rising is come, and he 
may try these until darkness drives him home. 

One who has observed trout feeding upon the 
tiny Diptera called indiscriminately by anglers 



54 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 

"black gnats," "punkies," "midges," etc., is 
quite inclined to believe that, while "smutting" 
is rather an inelegant term to apply to the fish, 
the insects themselves, considering the provo- 
cation, have been let off too lightly in being 
described as "smuts" and "curses." These di- 
minutive pests seem to be abroad at all times 
of the day, but are particularly numerous in 
the late afternoon, when clouds of them may be 
seen hovering over the still water of the pools. 
At such times the trout seem to be busily feed- 
ing, but the keenest observation does not dis- 
close what it is they are taking. These "curses" 
are so small that it seems incredible that large 
trout should be interested in them. That they 
are is easily proven by autopsy, and I have 
found solid masses of them in the gullets and 
stomachs of sizable fish, proving that they must 
have been extremely busy if the insects were 
taken singly. If one could see these tiny things 
upon the water, and could see a trout rise to 
them, he would have convincing evidence that 
they are taken singly; but, though my eyesight 
is still good, I have never been able to satisfy 
myself that I have actually seen a fish take one 
of them. After many experiences with trout 
under such conditions, and particularly after a 



THE RISE 55 

series of observations extending on one occasion 
over a period of four successive days, I am al- 
most ready to believe that the fish do not wait 
for them to fall upon the water. This notion — 
perhaps fanciful — came to me while on a pool 
that had been my objective during an after- 
noon's fishing, and upon which I intended to 
close the day. Arriving there about a half hour 
before sundown, I was not a little delighted to 
find fish rising freely all over. After studying 
them for a few moments I concluded that they 
were not "bulging," because the surface was 
broken each time with a distinct "smack." 
They could not have been "tailing," because 
the water was about four feet deep. They 
were not rising to any insects that I could see, 
although I looked long and steadily. Yet they 
rose freely, and each fish rose again and again in 
practically the same spot. 

Using the smallest fly that I had with me, 
a flat-winged "black gnat" tied on a No. i6 
hook, I cast faithfully but unavailingly for some 
time, endeavouring to interest two fish which 
were nearest me, and until I was quite ready to 
confess myself beaten. However, I decided to 
try them with a larger fly, and while preparing 
to tie this on my attention was attracted by four 



S6 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 

distinct clouds of insects hovering over the water 
— on the wing, certainly, but making no flight. 
They were merely dancing in the air about two 
feet above the pool. Watching closely, I saw the 
insects gradually decrease this distance until but 
an inch or two separated the lower extremity of 
a cloud of them from the water, when directly 
underneath would come another "smack" as 
the tail of a trout broke the surface. Immedi- 
ately the swarm would scatter, though but for 
an instant, collecting again to perform the same 
evolution as before, when again they would be 
scattered by a fish under them. This happened 
to all four swarms in rapid succession, and it 
was quite evident that a trout was under each. 
Every time the insects were close to the water 
the tail of a trout would be seen and water 
would be thrown amongst them. Query: Did 
the trout deliberately throw water at these 
insects with the intention of drenching those 
within reach and in order that they might be 
picked up at leisure after they had fallen into 
the stream? And, if so, why were the fish not 
observed in the act of picking them up? Or 
did the sight of the insects excite the anger of 
the fish, or a sport-loving instinct — if, indeed, 
fish are capable of these emotions ? 



THE RISE 57 

My subsequent experience with these fish 
tended only to confuse me further in my guess- 
ing. This *' spattering" game went on for fifteen 
or twenty minutes, and was brought to a con- 
clusion, finally, by the retirement of the "curses," 
which left the scene perpendicularly, going 
straight up until lost to view. After they had 
disappeared the fish stopped rising. Having 
marked them down, I determined to have one 
more try with a large fly, and, to my amaze- 
ment, my first cast brought a swift rise, but no 
connection was made. Resting the fish for a 
moment, I tried him again; he rose, and I was 
fast in what appeared to be a very good fish. 
I had great difficulty in leading him to the 
lower end of the pool, so that I might not dis- 
turb the others, and finally netted him. He 
proved to be a small trout and was hooked on 
the side just above the tail. I then tried the 
others, and, although I rose each one at least 
three times, I hooked none, nor on any occasion 
did I feel that the fly had been touched. By 
this time it was quite dark and I left for home. 

On the three following days I met with the 
same experience. I had innumerable rises to 
my fly after the "curses" had left, hooked but 
one fish each evening, and, by a remarkable 



S8 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 

coincidence, each foul and near the tail. Again, 
query: Was this mere accident or were the 
trout trying to drench my fly? Were they still 
on the lookout for the sport afforded them by 
the clouds of insects? The gullets of the fish 
taken were lined with the small insects, the 
stomachs also being well filled with them; but 
how the fish took them after they had risen 
without my seeing some indication of it, I 
cannot imagine. I feel quite certain that they 
were not taken at the instant of the rise, 
because the insects did not touch the water at 
any time; nor did the trout show any part of 
their bodies above the surface except their tails. 
So they could not have been taken in the air. 
Some day, perhaps, the problem may be solved, 
but at present I have no solution to offer. 

A bulging or smutting fish and a cursing an- 
gler are not a rare combination. If there is 
anything more perplexing and vexing than the 
sight of fish rising all about and one's best ef- 
forts going unrewarded, I cannot imagine what 
it is. 

A bulging fish may be taken with an imitation 
of the insects he is feeding upon, either sunk in 
one form or floating in another; but a smutting 
fish cannot be appealed to with any imitation 



THE RISE 59 

of his food of the moment. The colour of 
the pests may be imitated, but no ingenuity 
of man can fashion an artificial so that it will 
resemble in size the minute form of the natural; 
and, even if ingenuity could do it, the hook to 
be used in conformity would be absolutely use- 
less and probably quite as difficult to make as 
the fly. Lacking a correct imitation of the 
"curses," which, even if good, might not be 
taken, one may accept the rebuffs offered to 
his fly with an equanimity born of the knowl- 
edge that he is not alone in his trouble. 

If smutting fish are to be taken at all they 
will probably be taken on a fly that has no re- 
semblance to any particular insect except, per- 
haps, one that is indigenous to the stream, or 
one in which the angler has faith. It may as- 
sume any form, flat-winged or erect. Colour, 
of course, is not important, except that it should 
not be too brilliant; a fly of sombre hue, such 
as the Whirling Dun, Cahill, or Evening Dun, 
being very effective, the Gold-Ribbed Hare's Ear 
or Wickham's Fancy frequently being accepted. 
I am inclined to think that a small fly receives 
no more attention than a large one, if as much; 
but nothing larger than a No. 12 or No. 14 hook 
should be used. 



6o THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 

Meeting with failure while the insects are 
about, the angler should rest until they have 
disappeared and then, having marked the posi- 
tion of the fish, try them with the method de- 
scribed for bulgers. Failing again, let him figure 
it out if he can. 

When fish are feeding upon some particular 
species of insect it is quite logical to assume 
that an imitation of that species will appeal to 
them more readily than an imitation of any 
other. But when the insects are numerous, as 
they are on occasions, and the fish are mov- 
ing about, the chance of the artificial fly being 
selected from among the great number of nat- 
urals upon the water is one to whatever the 
number may be. As a general rule, the larger 
fish take up positions which by virtue of might 
are theirs for the choosing and almost invari- 
ably in places where many flies are carried down 
by the current. If they be rising steadily the 
angler is enabled to reduce the odds against 
him by his ability to place his fly near the spot 
where he knows one to be lying. It does not 
follow, however, that because certain insects are 
observed flying about they are of the species 
with which the trout are engaged for the moment. 

If an insect be observed flying as though 



THE RISE 6i 

it had some objective point in view, it may 
be safely concluded that it has but recently 
assumed the winged state. In this case it is 
attractive to the fish only at the moment it 
emerges from its shuck, or immediately after- 
ward while it is resting upon the water, for the 
very obvious reason that it does not appear 
upon the water again until it is about to deposit 
its eggs, if a female, or, if of the opposite sex, 
when it falls lifeless after the fulfilment of its 
natural duties. 

When the insects are seen dancing about over 
the water, oftentimes a considerable height 
above it — in some cases thirty feet or more — 
the observer may be quite satisfied that they 
are the perfect males of the species waiting for 
the females to appear. After the sexual func- 
tion has been completed the female may be seen 
flitting over the water, dipping to the surface 
and rising again, in the act of depositing her 
eggs, finally coming to rest as the function is 
completed, only to be swept away to her death. 
As she does not travel any considerable distance 
during this last act of her life, she proves of 
greatest interest to the fish at this stage of it. 

One who observes closely will see that at the 
moment the female approaches the water, or 



62 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 

during her subsequent dips, attempts, frequently 
successful, are made by the fish to capture her. 
As these efforts require some activity, they are 
resorted to usually by the more agile dandi- 
prats. The larger fish are quite as interested 
in the dainty morsel as are their younger 
brothers, but they do not make the same 
frantic efforts to secure it, preferring to attend 
the fly closely in its movements until the oppor- 
tunity presents itself to take it with little or 
no exertion. This is usually at the time ovi- 
positing is about completed or the fly is resting 
upon the surface of the water preparatory to 
another flight. The females of some species are 
less active in the performance of this duty than 
those of others. They select the more placid 
stretches of the stream, ride quietly upon its 
surface, and the eggs exude from the oviduct 
as they sail along. Occasionally, after travel- 
ling in this manner for a time, they rise from 
the water, fly a short distance, and settle again. 
They are incapable of guiding themselves and 
are naturally carried along by the current and 
over the fish. 

It has been my observation that during the 
period of ovipositing a great majority of the in- 
sects are headed directly up-stream, instinctively 



THE RISE 63 

knowing, perhaps, that contact with the cur- 
rent in that position will more readily relieve 
them of their burdens. And, while I have no 
certain knowledge that it is so, I am inclined to 
believe that the setae or hair-like tail enables 
them to assume and maintain this position. 
At any rate, it should be the angler's ambition 
to imitate this action, and present his counter- 
feit with its tail or hook end coming down to 
the fish. This gives the added advantage of 
having the business end taken first and elimi- 
nates the danger of disturbing the fish by hav- 
ing the shadow of the leader thrown over him 
in advance. To do it successfully calls for a 
nicety of judgment in the handling of rod and 
line; but when the skill is acquired its success- 
ful execution has its own reward. 

The utmost caution should be used in ap- 
proaching a feeding fish. The danger of put- 
ting him down does not depend solely upon his 
getting sight of the angler; he may also be 
apprised of the angler's coming by the excited 
darting up-stream of smaller fish which have 
been below him. If the character of the water 
to be fished indicates that other and smaller 
fish may be hidden, or if their presence be dis- 
closed by their feeding, it is much safer to cast 



64 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 

at right angles to the selected fish than to at- 
tempt to cast from below and over the smaller 
ones. If the situation demands that the fly be 
placed from this position it should be floated 
down to the fish from a point two or three feet 
above and should not be cast directly over him. 
Inasmuch as the trout is more likely to see the 
rod at this angle, a longer line should be thrown 
than would otherwise be necessary and, if the 
fish has been well spotted, great care must be 
exercised in presenting the fly without undue 
accompaniment of leader. 

The fly may be presented alone by using the 
horizontal cast. If an attempt is being made to 
drop the fly three feet above the fish, it is neces- 
sary to aim at a spot six feet above, with a bit 
longer line than will just reach, suddenly check- 
ing the cast at the very end as it straightens. 
This will have the effect of throwing the fly 
down-stream. The leader will describe a sharp 
curve and follow after, and will not be seen by 
the fish before he sees the fly. After the fly has 
alighted, the rod should be held consistently 
pointed directly at the fly and in a horizontal 
position. Held in this way, it is less likely to be 
seen by the fish and a better control of the line 
is had if a rise be effected. 



THE RISE 65 

There are, in fact, good reasons why the rod 
should be held horizontally whenever and wher- 
ever the floating fly is being used, the line being 
stripped in by the unoccupied hand as much as 
may be necessary to keep the fly under control. 

If the current be rapid between the angler and 
the fish, he should use a foot or two more of line 
and try to throw a larger curve in the leader so 
that the fly may reach the fish before drag is ex- 
erted upon it. If the cast be well done there is 
at least an even chance that the fly will be taken; 
if not well done, no move should be made to 
retrieve the fly until it has floated some distance 
below the fish, and even then the retrieve should 
not be made directly from the water with the 
full length of line. The line, leader, and fly 
will be swept down-stream at a speed depend- 
ing upon the current, and will be approaching 
the angler's bank. By stripping the line in 
slowly and carefully, the fly may be lightly 
whisked off with little or no disturbance of the 
surface when there is little but the leader upon 
the water, and another attempt made. The 
angler may continue this process as long as he 
feels he has made no mistake. 

If the fly has been refused after a number of 
casts, and the fish continues to rise, it is some 



66 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 

consolation to know that he has not been dis- 
turbed by the casting. A change of tactics is 
very often effective in such cases; and, if the fly 
be placed very close to the fish instead of being 
floated down to him, its sudden appearance, 
giving but little time for investigation, may 
cause him to rise to it. 

When a rising fish may be cast to without 
disturbing those below him, the angler is in a 
more favourable position. Where practicable, 
the effort should be to make the throw with 
the leader curved and above the fly. Natu- 
rally, this is more easily accomplished when the 
fish — looking up-stream — is on the angler's left 
hand. Unless one be ambidextrous, or skilful 
enough to throw with the right hand from over 
the left shoulder, a fish under the right-hand 
bank is difficult to reach in this manner. Until 
the cast has been mastered, no attempt should 
be made to throw the curve; but one need not 
despair of taking fish in this position, even 
though this skill be lacking. The fly may be 
thrown straight, but from a more obtuse angle; 
and if, instead of being placed directly over or 
above the fish, it be placed slightly above and 
a foot to the near side of the spot where he 
rose, the danger of scaring him off with the 



THE RISE (,^ 

leader is lessened, and the chance of his taking 
it not a bit. 

Where a long cast is required, the line should 
never be extended to the length required to 
reach the fish. The distance should be mea- 
sured carefully, and, when the fly in the false or 
air casts reaches a point five or six feet from 
the fish, that much line — which should be 
stripped from the reel and held in the left 
hand — should be allowed to pass through the 
guides on the next forward cast. This is called 
shooting the line. Not only is it of great as- 
sistance in attaining accuracy, but the momen- 
tum imparted to the ''live" line, that part al- 
ready clear of the top, is lost and does not 
travel down to the fly, which, shorn of impulse, 
remains suspended for an instant above the 
water and falls thereon as lightly as the pro- 
verbial feather. 

The fly should never be aimed directly at the 
water, but at an imaginary point three or four 
feet above, and a like distance in advance 
of, the spot it is desired to reach. This di- 
rection must be implicitly observed in this 
method of casting, because the fly will invari- 
ably fall short unless a greater length of line 
be used than is apparently necessary. Very 



68 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 

often the fly will fall heavily if just the required 
length of line is used without "shooting." 

Where a fish is rising in the strong current, a 
short line, not over twenty-five feet, will be suffi- 
cient and quite enough to handle, as it is returned 
very quickly to the angler. In this case the 
"shoot'* may be abandoned in the actual deliv- 
ery of the fly and used only to lengthen the line 
between casts after the retrieve, which should 
be made only when the fly has passed consider- 
ably behind the fish — the exact distance natu- 
rally being determined by the circumstances. 
The line should be stripped with the left hand 
to keep pace with the speed with which the fly 
travels and no faster, else its action will not be 
natural. Nothing but the fly and leader should 
be on the water, and as little of the latter as 
possible. Get behind the fish, but do not cast 
directly over him. The fly should come down 
past him to one side or the other, with the 
leader always on the same side — away from the 
fish. 

Early in the season, if the weather be pro- 
pitious and the stream in good condition, it is 
not unlikely that fish will be seen rising through- 
out the day — perhaps not all of the time but 
often enough to keep the angler alert. The 



THE RISE 69 

fact that they are rising at all is quite sufficient 
to arouse his interest, because, even though the 
fish nearest him does not take his fly, the one 
above may; and, all things considered, he may 
hope to have a fairly interesting day, with the 
further chance, if fortune smiles, of a good one. 

How different the situation confronting the 
angler who elects to fish the streams in the hot 
summer months, with the water at its lowest 
mark, clear as crystal — or gin, as the English- 
man has it — and not a fish to be seen rising the 
whole livelong day, for the very good reason 
that no insects are about to offer inducement. 
Even in June these conditions sometimes pre- 
vail, with the redeeming feature, however, that 
toward evening the falling temperature, or the 
approach of darkness, or both, seem to induce 
a rise of insects, with an accompanying rise of 
trout. The angler, having patiently waited for 
this time, sets hard at work and is content to 
take a couple of fair fish in the hour or so before 
dark. 

I confess to a certain weakness for the stream 
during those periods of extreme heat when the 
local experts agree that it is almost impossible 
to take fish. Actuated, perhaps, as much by a 
desire to take a good fish as by the hope of 



70 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 

learning whether or not their theories were cor- 
rect, I have gone to the stream under such 
conditions and have had some curious experi- 
ences. I have taken fine fish on broiling hot 
days when there seemed to be little difference 
between the temperature of the water and the 
air. On days when the "hatch" has been so 
thin that one would be warranted in thinking 
that the trout had forgotten that there ever was 
such a thing as a fly, I have taken some of my 
best fish. On the other hand, there have been 
many occasions when I have met with utter 
defeat, and, all in all, I hardly know what I 
have really learned from the experiences, so 
varied have they been. 

One insufferably hot July day convinced me, 
however, that there are times when trout are 
interested neither in food nor in anything else. 
For three sultry hours I cast over every likely 
spot. I never rose a fish. I never saw one rise. 
I did not see a fish. 

At a beautiful pool, small but of good depth, 
considering the state of the water, I felt that 
my last chance had come, and, after covering 
the whole surface carefully, without result, de- 
liberately waded into it, hoping to scare any 
fish that might be there and so learn where 



THE RISE 71 

they were hiding. I did not see a fin, and 
had about decided it was tenantless, when, 
looking down, I saw, close to my feet, the tail 
of a fish sticking out from under a small boulder. 
I looked under the up-stream side of the boulder, 
hoping to see the fish's head, but could not, as 
there was no hollow on that side. I gently 
stroked that part of the fish in sight with the 
tip of my rod, and received in acknowledgment 
a gentle waving of the tail. Placing my gear 
behind me in the dry bed of the stream, I pro- 
ceeded to move the boulder to see what manner 
of trout this might be. Not until I had it com- 
pletely removed did he stir — and then he moved 
but a short distance to a similar hiding-place. 
He was a brown trout about fifteen inches long, 
and so sluggish was he that it would have been 
the simplest matter to have seized him with my 
hands. 

A short distance above the pool there is a 
dam famous for the big trout which make their 
home under it. I covered the water faithfully, 
without success, and, after I had finished, crawled 
out upon the apron of the dam. Peering into 
the pool below, I saw, directly underneath me, 
eighteen or twenty trout ranging from six inches 
in length to one old "lunker" over twenty. As 



72 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 

this spot had been cast over repeatedly, and 
apparently without any glaring error, I felt in 
no humour to try again, but determined to test 
their appetites in another way. Catching a half 
dozen grasshoppers, I dropped one in front of 
the big fish that led the school. He paid not 
the slightest attention to it. Neither did any 
of the others, not even the smallest one. I tried 
again, throwing another grasshopper a bit up- 
stream so that it would float down in plain 
view for a longer time, and again provoked 
no interest upon the part of the fish. Finally, 
I killed one of the grasshoppers, crushing it so 
that it would sink, and threw it well above 
the fish. It came down under water directly 
on a line with the big fish, which deliber- 
ately moved a bit to one side, apparently to 
avoid having it touch him. Each fish behind 
him did the same thing, even the smallest ones 
ignoring it. 

Now, what sort of a fly, wet, sunk, or dry, or, 
if the angler was inclined to try it, what sort of 
bait could he use to interest such fish? Under 
the conditions then prevailing — the thermometer 
recording 94 degrees in the shade, the stream at 
its lowest point, and the temperature of the 
water very high — I really believe that the only 



THE RISE 73 

chance he might have had would have been with 
a very "wet" mint julep. Under the circum- 
stances it would have required considerable self- 
denial to have offered that. This heat was ex- 
ceptional, however, and fishing in such weather 
is quite as trying as fishing in the cold, bluster- 
ing days of early spring. In either case, even 
if fish are taken, enthusiasm is not greatly 
aroused on the part of either angler or trout. 

I confess I do not know what method of fly 
fishing one may use to entice a trout when the 
temperature is extreme, because when the fish 
is found under a boulder, as he probably will 
be, he will not see a floating fly, and it is almost 
hopeless to expect a sunken fly to attract any 
attention — witness the case of the idle fish and 
the grasshoppers. If fish not hiding in cav- 
erns refuse live grasshoppers dropped directly 
in front of their noses, it is quite evident that 
there is small chance of taking them on any 
sort of artificial lure. 

Leaving out of consideration, however, the 
few periods of unbearable heat, that part of 
the season between June 15 and August 31 
may have many days rich in experience for 
the angler, and even though there be many 
days when the fish will be found not to be ris- 



74 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 

ing to natural insects, the pleasure derivable 
from trying for success is commensurate with 
the difficulty of approaching and luring them. 

When the streams are low and clear great cir- 
cumspection and care are required in approach- 
ing fish or likely places and in presenting the 
fly. The slightest error will be detected at once, 
and subsequent attempts to interest the fish will 
be effort merely wasted. 

The angler who carefully casts over and thor- 
oughly fishes a likely piece of water should not 
come too quickly to the conclusion that it con- 
tains no fish. If it happens to be one of those 
days (too frequent in the experience of the pres- 
ent-day angler) when a great length of stream 
may be traversed without his seeing the slight- 
est indication of a rising fish, he may, of course, 
if he be so inclined, comfort himself with the 
thought that the fish are not feeding and 
abandon his fishing. But I hope to show that 
upon just such days the proper use of the dry 
fly will measure the difference between an empty 
creel and some success, even though that suc- 
cess be limited to the probability of a single 
good fish. 

An English dry fly angler fishing our Eastern 
American streams by rote and casting only over 



THE RISE 75 

or to rising fish would have many empty days to 
record in his diary. Days and days might pass 
without his seeing the "dimple" of a big fish or 
even the splash of a small one, except, possibly, 
just at dusk; and at such times his skill and 
patience would be taxed as heavily as ever by 
any smutting fish of a chalk stream. But does 
it follow, as some authorities seem to have sug- 
gested, that because a fish is not risen by a few 
casts here and there it has no inclination to 
come to the surface or that such inclination 
may not be aroused ? I think not, my experience 
having proven the contrary. 

The entire theory of forcing the fish to rise 
to the fly is based upon the fact that a trout 
may be decoyed from the position occupied by 
it when not feeding to one fixed by the angler, 
provided, of course, the fish is not asked to 
come any great distance. The practice of the 
method necessitates considerable knowledge of 
the fish and of the character of the places it 
frequents. The fly cast, say, twenty times, in 
close proximity to the supposed lair of a fish, in 
nine cases out of ten will prove more effective 
than twice the same number of casts placed 
indiscriminately over the water. But no glaring 
mistake, such as undue splashing or frantic wav- 



76 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 

ing of the rod, is overlooked by the fish. If 
such errors have been committed, the angler 
had best retire and try some fish that has not 
become acquainted with him. 

Having chosen the point of vantage from 
which to assail the fish, which choice should be 
governed, first, by reason of its being out of 
range of the trout's vision, and then by the 
availability of casting room behind — ^note the 
order of importance — the single fly should be 
placed a foot or two from the spot where the 
fish is supposed to be and to one side of it. 
The instructions given in regard to casting to 
bulging fish so as to produce the effect of a 
hatch should be followed to the letter. Even 
where the distance seems rather too far to 
expect the fish to travel, it is better to select 
water that flows continuously in one direction in 
which to place the fly. It is preferable to have 
the fly travel in one "lane" during its prome- 
nade, rather than to have its action marred by a 
possible drag resulting from an attempt to get 
it closer to the fish. If the fly has been natural 
in its action, it is quite likely that it has at- 
tracted the attention of the fish, and the angler 
may at any moment be amazed to see a trout 
backing slowly down-stream under it, seemingly 



THE RISE -j-j 

coming from nowhere. This is the trying time, 
as the fish, having come closer to the angler, is 
more likely to be frightened off by any sudden 
movement; but if the angler is careful, the 
satisfaction of eventually seeing the fish rise 
deliberately and fasten to the fly is not to be 
measured by that of taking a larger fish by any 
other method. 

Great care should be exercised in retrieving 
the fly from the water, because a fish taking 
up a position under the angler's lane of flies 
usually backs down-stream a bit. In no case 
should the fly be retrieved until it has floated 
down to a point nearly at right angles to or 
even below the rod. Strict observance of this 
rule will prevent scaring off many fish that 
might otherwise be induced to rise. 

Where the swiftness of the current precludes 
any possibility of preventing drag, particularly 
in those miniature pools behind rocks in the 
centre of the stream called "pockets," the fly 
may be placed lightly thereon, and as lightly 
whisked away, being left but an instant, to 
be returned immediately and often, until the 
angler is satisfied that the pocket contains no 
fish, or that he is unable to interest them if it 
does. In any event, he need not feel that an 



78 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 

Opportunity has been lost to him because of his 
inability to avoid drag, for in this sort of water 
the error is not always observed by the fish. 

There can be no question but that stalking a 
feeding fish and finally taking him on an arti- 
ficial fly affords sport of the highest quality. 
The taking of a fish that may be seen but is 
not feeding, either because of lack of food or 
disinclination, is quite as difficult to accomplish, 
however, and is productive of equally good sport. 

I relate the following story of the taking 
of a trout under almost impossible conditions, 
not so much to illustrate the success of the 
method as to show the satisfaction that attends 
the accomplishment of the feat. This individ- 
ual fish is only one of many that I have taken 
similarly in the many years that I have fished 
with the floating fly, and the history of its 
taking is given here because it illustrates and 
bolsters up my claim that the dry fly repeatedly 
cast over a sluggish, non-feeding fish will in- 
duce him to rise. 

The last two days of the season of 1909, 
August 29 and 30, found me on the banks of 
the Kaaterskill, at Palenville, Greene County, 
N. Y. This stream is a brawling one, resem- 
bling many Rocky Mountain streams, and 



THE RISE 79 

some magnificent rainbow trout inhabit it; yet 
in six hours' fishing, one afternoon, I raised but 
one good-sized fish, in which I left my fly. The 
dozen or more fish from ten to twenty inches in 
length which could be seen restlessly swimming 
about in each of the pools appeared to be inter- 
ested in nothing but a desire to escape the 
intense heat, and at length I abandoned the 
sport as hopeless. 

A gentleman who had once lived in that sec- 
tion, and who had fished the streams of the sur- 
rounding country for over thirty years, invited 
me to fish a stream some miles away with him 
the next day. I accepted his invitation, and the 
morning found us on the banks of what should 
have been the Plattekill, but proved to be 
nothing but a mere trickle. With many mis- 
givings I started in, my companion going up- 
stream about a mile to fish down and meet me. 

The only likely water within three or four 
hundred yards was a pool under a dam, and here 
I rose and pricked a good fish. Leaving him, I 
cut across a neck of land to meet my companion 
at the turn, and found him ready to quit. But 
I determined to try again for the fish I had 
risen, and, while following the stream back, dis- 
covered a pool against the bank, some eight 



8o THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 

feet wide and not over a dozen in length, with 
six feet of water in it. On the bottom lay a 
fine brown trout, as motionless as if dead. He 
was actually lying on the sand and pebbles, 
apparently devoid of all interest in life. I with- 
drew quietly and, getting below him and be- 
hind a tree-stump on the bank, put on a new 
fly — a Whirling Dun — and, with but little hope, 
sent the fly on its errand. It fell lightly upon 
the glassy surface about a yard above the fish, 
which was at all times in plain view; but he 
seemed entirely oblivious to it. There was 
practically no current to carry it down, and it 
seemed an interminable length of time before 
the fly got below the fish far enough for me to 
take it off the water without disturbance; but 
at last I retrieved it and, after drying it thor- 
oughly, dropped it again. I repeated this opera- 
tion six times before I noticed any change in 
the position of the fish, and all of the time he 
was just "lolling" on the bottom. The sixth 
cast seemed to attract his attention, and, with 
all fins moving, he lifted ever so little from the 
bottom and stood poised. I felt that I had him 
interested — that he was alert — and I knew that 
the slightest mistake from then on meant failure, 
complete and certain; and my excitement was 



THE RISE 8i 

not helping a bit. Another cast, and I imagined 
I could see him tremble; at any rate, his fins 
moved rapidly, but without imparting any 
motion to the body, except to lift it an inch or 
two toward the surface. Each succeeding cast 
brought the same excited action of the fins and 
tempted him a few inches nearer the surface. 
I thought he never would reach the top, and 
felt that if he didn't get within his distance 
soon I would bungle the whole affair. At last, 
and after I had made more than twenty-five 
casts, he had risen to within six inches of the 
surface; as the fly was presented again, he 
made a determined rush, stopping just short of 
it and allowing it to float over him, apparently 
without further interest. I gently retrieved the 
fly, though I felt that it was all over, as the 
fish had probably detected the fraud. However, 
I made another cast and the fly fortunately 
alighted softly. The fish made the same rush, 
refusing it as before; but after the fly had 
floated down a foot or so, he turned slowly and 
deliberately down-stream, and, rising quietly, 
took the fly with a distinct "suck," turned to go 
down with it, and was fast. 

This was not a very large trout — fifteen 
inches or so — but his taking afl^orded more genu- 



82 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 

ine sport than a dozen larger ones might have 
yielded taken in any other way, because of the 
circumstances under which it was accomplished. 
I may have had a possible advantage over him, 
because a floating fly had, probably, never been 
cast on the stream before. Aside from this 
fact, it cannot be said that the element of luck 
entered into the affair at all, except, perhaps, 
in so far as it enabled me to deliver my fly so 
many times without mistake. I have, however, 
taken many other and larger fish in practically 
the same manner and by the employment of the 
same tactics, and know the method to be sound 
in theory and practice. For the solace of the 
beginner who may attempt to practise the 
method, let me add that in the beginning the 
fish I took were, probably, a very small number 
of those from which all thoughts of feeding were 
driven by my bungling. 

If a trout lying in a small pool and in plain 
view, as was the one whose story has just been 
told, could be induced to come up through six 
feet of water to take the fly, is it not fair to 
assume that an unseen fish may also be forced 
to rise by the same tactics ? Of course, in the 
case of an unseen fish, the angler labours under 
some disadvantage, because he is casting some- 



THE RISE 83 

what in the dark. In addition to abiUty to de- 
liver many casts perfectly to a selected spot, he 
must also have the experience and knowledge 
that enable him to decide, at least approxi- 
mately, where the fish may lie under the pre- 
vailing conditions. If his judgment in this par- 
ticular is at fault his chances of rising the fish 
are gone. He should, therefore, assume that it 
occupies any of three or four positions, and for 
his first cast should choose that one of them 
which may be cast over with the least danger of 
disturbing the fish should it occupy any one of 
the others. If a rise be not had after a certain 
number of casts over the chosen position, the 
others should each be fished in turn. 

The chance of putting down a fish for good 
will increase in proportion to the number of 
casts over each position, multiplied by the num- 
ber of positions. That a rise is not had from 
the position first chosen will not prove that a 
fish does not occupy it, and the angler's sub- 
sequent casts will be made under increased 
difficulty, because of his efforts to refrain from 
further disturbing that water. 

Before leaving this subject, and at the risk 
of becoming somewhat tedious and tiring my 
reader, I will relate the circumstances of the 



84 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 

taking of an unseen fish by repeatedly casting 
over a chosen spot — in other words, of ''forcing 
a rise." The incident has an added interest 
because a fellow angler witnessed it and was 
thereby convinced that a fish could be moved 
into position by the fly. 

We were fishing the Brodhead, in Pennsyl- 
vania. It was in July and the day was very 
hot. The water was extremely low and very 
clear, and the upper reach of the stream just 
below the Canadensis bridge, which we had 
elected to fish, did not look big enough to 
hold a trout of any size. In one particular 
stretch there was a hundred yards of very 
shallow water, a small pocket on the right- 
hand bank being the only likely looking spot. 
I knew this stretch held many fine fish when the 
stream was in better condition, and I decided 
that this particular pocket might be the abiding- 
place of a good trout. As it was approaching 
the noon hour, I determined to go no farther 
up-stream but to spend a half hour experi- 
menting on the little pocket. 

The surface of the miniature pool was not 
over eight feet wide anywhere nor more than 
that in length, but its depth below a jutting 
rock which formed one side of it convinced me 



THE RISE 85 

that it was worth trying, although there was no 
actual indication that a fish occupied it. The 
bottom was plainly discernible except in the 
swifter water near the head, and, as no fish 
could be seen, I selected the edge of this swift 
water upon which to place my fly. A dozen or 
more casts were made without any apparent 
effect, when suddenly a yellow gleam at the 
tail of the pocket, just after the fly had floated 
over the lip, disclosed a fine trout poised in the 
flattening water. Explaining the situation to 
my companion — who was now all excitement, 
having seen the fish, and who really did not 
believe it could be taken — on the spur of the 
moment I decided to try to prove my theory 
at the risk of losing the fish. I ceased casting 
to him. We watched him for probably two or 
three minutes, during which time he appeared 
to be keenly alert, when he quietly left his 
position and moved back up-stream into the 
swift water and out of sight. My opportunity 
had come, although my friend thought I had 
lost it. To make more certain that the colour 
of the fly played no part in the affair, I sub- 
stituted a Silver Sedge for the Whirling Dun 
I had been using. After about a dozen casts 
with this fly there came the same yellow gleam. 



86 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 

and the fish was back into position again. This 
time I continued casting, and, although he 
seemed to "lean" toward the fly each time it 
came down, he did not take it until it had 
passed by ten times, finally rising deliberately 
and fastening on the eleventh cast. He proved 
to weigh one pound ten ounces. 

To what conclusion does the observation of 
this fish bring us ? If he had been ready to feed 
before the artificial appeared, is it likely that 
he would have permitted it to pass over or 
near him a score of times before taking? And 
when he occupied what I call his feeding posi- 
tion, why did he allow the fly to pass ten times, 
although exhibiting a certain interest in it each 
time? It was never beyond his reach and could 
easily have been taken. Was the desire to feed 
being gradually aroused in him at each sight of 
the fly ? When he did take it, it was done with 
such certainty that he must have believed it to 
be a natural, although quite unlike anything he 
had recently seen. One thing is certain, how- 
ever. He was decoyed from one position to an- 
other on two occasions within a few minutes of 
each other, and by a different pattern of fly 
each time. 



CHAPTER IV 
WHERE AND WHEN TO FISH 

The swift streams in the eastern part of the 
United States must, as a rule, be fished by 
wading. Where it is possible, because of the 
absence of trees and brush, to fish from the 
bank, the angler's form is silhouetted sharply 
against the background of sky, and, to over- 
come this disadvantage, he must retire some 
distance from the edge of the bank, or, if he 
wishes to come closer, must kneel or crouch to 
avoid being seen by the fish. By casting from 
the bank he will avoid the disturbance of the 
water necessarily made by entering it, and this 
is, of course, an advantage. On the other hand, 
he is closer to the surface of the stream while 
wading, in which position he is not so easily 
seen, which is also an advantage. Offsetting the 
latter, however, is the commotion made by his 
movements, which, no matter how deliberate, 
will make the trout nervous or apprehensive of 
approaching danger. If he has shown himself, 
even though the fish has been vigorously feed- 

87 



88 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 

ing, he might just as well abandon any attempt 
to induce a rise, because the trout, having been 
warned by his careless approach, will have 
scurried away. The danger of putting down a 
fish in swift water is not so great because the 
ripples sent in advance of the angler make little 
headway and travel no great distance against 
a strong current. 

To describe places where trout may be looked 
for under any and all circumstances, is prac- 
tically impossible. Very often the fish will not 
be found where the angler thinks they should 
be. They are as full of notions and idiosyn- 
crasies as anglers themselves, and one may 
hope to become familiar with their habitat in a 
general way only, and this after close study. 
I say "in a general way," because, while a big 
trout may be known to inhabit a certain pool, 
it does not follow that he is in the same spot 
to-day that he occupied yesterday or the day 
before. He may be looked for somewhere 
about, but a distance of even three or four feet 
from his previous known position may so place 
him as to prevent the angler from approaching 
without being seen. I am speaking of fish that 
are not rising. Of course, if they should be 
feeding upon the surface they are easily spotted. 



WHERE AND WHEN TO FISH 89 

Each pool or piece of water should be ex- 
amined carefully after it has been fished. In 
this way the deeper holes, the nooks under the 
banks, and the crevices between boulders are 
discovered and marked down. If the angler is 
to spend much time on a stream that is new to 
him, it is even permissible to enter the deeper 
water quietly for the purpose of a thorough in- 
vestigation; but under no circumstances should 
this be done if other anglers are upon the stream. 
As a rule, we are too careless of others' rights, 
and the ethics of fly fishing should be observed 
quite as closely as the code that governs our 
actions in any other sport. 

A long, flat stretch of the stream is likely to 
contain many big fish, and must be approached 
in the most circumspect manner. The angler 
who hopes to take one of them should study 
the water carefully before entering it, and strive 
to determine just where the biggest fish lie. 
The character of the water and its tempera- 
ture and the prevailing weather conditions are 
the data from which he must make his de- 
ductions. 

By way of iHustration, let us assume that the 
angler is upon the stream, prepared to fish it. 

The day is one somewhere between the first 



90 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 

of May and the fifteenth of June. It is not too 
bright, and a light wind with a touch of summer 
in it is blowing up-stream. The water is running 
down after a light rain, and while not crystal 
clear is not much discoloured. It is about five- 
thirty o'clock of the afternoon, and the trout 
from below the stretch are coming on the feed. 
The flat to be fished is about one hundred and 
fifty feet long from where the water flows into 
it to where it rolls out again at the tail, and 
about fifty feet wide where the banks are 
farthest apart, narrowing, fan-like, to ten feet 
or less at the head. The current, gliding silently 
along the left bank (looking up-stream), shows 
the deep water to be on that side. These are 
ideal conditions, of course, and I have chosen 
them for that very reason. The angler is in- 
deed fortunate who happens upon the stream 
when they prevail. 

The natural place to look for trout under 
such conditions is anywhere along the left bank 
in the deep water. If flies are hatching — as in 
all probability they will be at this season — the 
angler need but watch for the rise that will 
indicate the position of the feeding fish. If 
these fish be small, as will be evidenced by the 
"staccato smack" made as the fly is taken, he 



WHERE AND WHEN TO FISH 91 

should move farther up-stream, because no 
really big feeding fish need be looked for 
where small ones are: vice versa, little fish rarely 
feed in the same place and at the same time as 
big ones. If no rise is seen, the task then is to 
locate the fish, and, under the favourable con- 
ditions prevailing, it may be fairly assumed that 
they are ready to feed. There will be one place 
in the flat where more surface food collects than 
in any other, and one place where more comes 
down-stream because of converging currents. 
In one of such places the biggest fish will be 
found. 

Wherever an eddy swirls gently against a 
small cove in the bank, or the force of the cur- 
r-ent spends itself against a rock, making a dead 
water or backwater above it, the fly may 
search and find many fine trout. If the back- 
water at the head of the stretch is of an area 
great enough to collect and hold the foam made 
by the tumbling water, this is the spot from 
which the angler may hope to secure one of the 
best fish in the pool, if not the best. One of the 
favourite feeding positions of a large trout is 
under this foam, and the fly, placed carefully 
again and again, often tempts him to move into 
his feeding position when, at the beginning of 



92 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 

the casting, he lay outside of it. The fly should 
be dropped lightly on the foam and permitted 
to remain there until it is snatched away by the 
current. 

It may happen that this particular part of 
the stretch does not contain one very large fish 
that "lords it" over a considerable area, but a 
number of fair-sized ones which, if feeding, will 
be somewhat scattered, and should be looked 
for in each of the places described. 

Before or after the foam, backwater, and 
eddies have been tried, preferably before, the 
water on either side of the swiftest part of the 
current should be cast over, the fly being placed 
just at the bottom and at the side of the" lumpy" 
water. A fly cast to this position is extremely 
effective, dancing most naturally as it comes 
swiftly down-stream. This water should be 
tested thoroughly, the fly being placed always 
in the same spot and permitted to follow the 
same course for as long a distance as possible. 

As daylight wanes, the fish often drop back to 
the tail of the stretch, sometimes feeding upon 
the very lip, or just above where the water be- 
gins to quicken before it spills out. This habit 
of trout may be due to their becoming less 
wary as dark approaches, and, consequently, 



WHERE AND WHEN TO FISH 93 

quite willing to enter the shallower water, where 
they find it easier to pick up a few insects or 
a minnow or two than in the deeper, swifter 
water above. Wherefore, if the angler has been 
unsuccessful at the head of the stretch, let him, 
by travelling circuitously, find a position some 
distance below the lip, and fish the still water 
carefully as long as he can see his fly. 

If the day is hot and bright, the water low and 
clear, and the fish not in any of the positions 
already described, they may be in either one of 
two places — along the bank or in the white 
water at the head. 

If the fish are lying alongside of the bank 
they will prove to be as difficult to take as the 
most fastidious could wish. Knowledge of the 
crannies, depth, etc., will help the angler and 
make his task easier. But if the water is strange 
to him, and the trout must be searched for, his 
task is more complicated and he must exercise 
the greatest care in approaching. In many 
cases the stretches are lined on both sides by 
alders, willows, and the like, that make it im- 
possible to cast without entering the water and, 
by so doing, forming ripples which, advancing 
ahead of the fly, warn the trout that danger is 
afoot. Exercising patience, he may walk slowly 



94 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 

and quietly into the water at the tail of the 
stretch and as closely as possible to the bank the 
fish are under. Having attained the desired 
position, he should remain there long enough to 
allow all commotion made by his entry to cease, 
during which time no motion of the rod should 
be made, because the sight of any moving object 
will send the now alert trout scurrying, while the 
ripples will make him uneasy for a short time 
only. The horizontal cast should be used if pos- 
sible. The fly should be floated down about a 
foot from the bank, and it should not be retrieved 
until it has travelled more than half the distance 
between the angler and the spot where it alighted. 
Casting should be continued until a mistake 
has marred the attempt, when the angler should 
desist, to resume after a short time has elapsed 
if the error has not been a glaring one. 

When satisfied that no trout are within the sec- 
tion covered by the fly, the angler should lengthen 
his line and fish the fly a few feet above — always 
permitting the fly to travel over the water al- 
ready fished. He should continue this until the 
maximum line that can be handled neatly with- 
out moving from the original position is being 
cast. When the line becomes unwieldy (in this 
method and position it is courting failure to 



WHERE AND WHEN TO FISH 95 

attempt anything over thirty-five to forty feet, 
even if one is expert) an advance may be made 
a few yards up-stream as closely to the bank as 
the depth of the water and free casting space 
:will permit. As it is quite possible— and likely, 
too — that a trout has been under the fly all the 
while, but was not interested in it, the angler's 
advance will drive him ahead, and indications 
of this should be sharply looked for. The dis- 
covery of the fish will save much valuable time, 
for in that case the immediate stretch may be 
abandoned, because any fish above the one seen 
will have certainly taken alarm at the actions of 
his fellow and will have lost all desire to feed 
for some time. 

If no fish is disturbed, search the bank care- 
fully along its length, always remembering to 
have the fly float down a considerable dis- 
tance before retrieving. The chances are quite 
even, if the approach has been made carefully 
and quietly, that a good fish will be risen. 
In such water only skill of the highest type 
is rewarded. If it is not possible to follow 
along the bank under which the trout are lying, 
the cast may be made from the opposite side; 
but in this case a longer line should be used. 
If the water must be entered to reach the bank 



96 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 

from the opposite side — and this, unfortunately, 
is usually the case — the angler should not move 
or allow his rod to move for some time after he 
has taken his position. 

Having reached the head of the stretch, the 
angler may go over the eddies, backwater, and 
swift, and, if he meets with no response, the 
white water. This, above all places, is the diffi- 
cult water to fish with the dry fly, and many 
anglers believe it to be quite impossible. If 
the dry fly be fished as is the wet fly — that is, 
cast in the swirl and allowed to drift about and 
down — it will become thoroughly drenched. But 
if it is placed properly and with due calculation, 
it is as easily kept dry and floating as upon 
any other part of the stream. The explana- 
tion lies in the fact that the fly is not placed 
directly upon the white water at all, if it be 
properly placed, but is cast to either side of the 
swift water, always on the side nearest the 
angler first, who should pick out the smooth 
looking spots upon which to place the fly. The 
fish which the wet fly angler takes directly from 
the centre of the current are taken on the dry 
fly by being induced to move out of their posi- 
tion. A very short line is used, and the fly is 
floated but a foot or two, being dropped lightly 



WHERE AND WHEN TO FISH 97 

again and again. I will admit that trout are 
not taken from the white water in this way by 
the dry fly as frequently as they are with the 
sunk fly, but when one is taken it is usually a 
good fish. 

On either side of the brink of the miniature 
fall above the white water may be seen boul- 
ders, seemingly acting as gatemen, directing the 
running waters to pass between. The current 
gliding swiftly toward them, deflected to right 
and left, reminds one of a flock of sheep all trying 
to get through a gap in the fence at the same 
time, those caught against the edge of the open- 
ing making little headway; and so it is with that 
part of the current which spends most of its 
force against the boulders. If this water be 
examined it will be discovered that consider- 
able dead or back water is formed under the 
surface just above the boulders. Such places 
are among the selected retreats of Salmo fario. 

A fly floated down from a point two feet above 
and retrieved just as it is about to go over the 
fall may produce a very pretty picture for the 
angler. If the fly upon its first appearance has 
been seen by the trout, he is often induced to 
rush at it, and, missing, goes headlong over the 
fall, instinct telling him, perhaps, that he may 



98 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 

find it below. Not to disappoint him, the angler 
drops it immediately at the edge of the white 
water, where it usually meets with a vicious 
reception. Should all not come off as planned, 
the fly may be cast again above the boulder and 
retrieved as before. The fish may be tempted 
to dart out and seize it after a dozen or more 
casts. If hooked, he will come over the fall to 
be dealt with in the smoother water below, and 
the angler will not have missed the picture, 
after all. 

Native trout rarely occupy such positions, 
but they should never be overlooked in streams 
known to contain brown or rainbow trout. 

Sometimes a short stretch of smooth, swift 
water will be found sweeping silently along the 
mossy bank just above the sentinel boulders at 
the head of the white water. The bank is 
probably shaded by overhanging rhododendron, 
or alder growth, that lends to the water a pe- 
culiar, greenish hue. This stretch may be oc- 
cupied by fine fish that, because of some effect 
of light or shade, seem better able to detect the 
approach of an angler or the connection of the 
leader with the fly than do fish in similar waters 
unshaded. A longer line is necessary here, and 
great care should be exercised to refrain, as far 



WHERE AND WHEN TO FISH 99 

as possible, from entering that arc of a circle 
which is presumed to limit the range of the 
trout's vision. Difficulty will also be experi- 
enced in handling the line, owing to the greater 
length used and the rapidity with which it will 
be returned by the current. The danger of 
scaring the fish is minimised if the fly be de- 
livered from a point almost directly in line with 
the current and the horizontal cast used. While 
not always necessary, the horizontal cast is 
better at all times, as the fly seems to cock more 
readily when thrown from this angle. 

As a stretch of this character is usually of uni- 
form depth along the greater part of its length, 
the fish may be in any part of it on a *' feeding'' 
day — a day when those below seemed to have 
been willing to feed. The fly should be placed at 
the foot of the stretch and on the side nearest the 
rod, and gradually worked, in the subsequent 
casts, toward the centre and head. This must 
be done slowly, however, and the fly should not 
be retrieved until it has come down some dis- 
tance and has passed the spot where the first 
cast was delivered. The fish, in all probability, 
will be found near the middle of the stretch 
and to the side of the centre of the current 
nearer the bank. No attempt should be made 



loo THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 

to get closer, because the chance of having the 
fish come to the fly is greater than that of his 
taking, after the line has been seen. 

When the prevailing conditions indicate that 
the trout are not in the open — in other words, 
are not fully engaged in feeding or in looking for 
food — they will usually be found lying near the 
bank. In such cases, the first attempt should 
be made at the tail or down-stream end of the 
swift, the fly being gradually worked up-stream 
a foot or so at a time and about a foot from the 
bank. It should be allowed to drift down to 
the foot of the stretch each time, and the cast- 
ing continued until the entire length of the bank 
has been thoroughly searched. If the bank 
should be of gravelly or earthy formation it 
may be an overhanging one, having been under- 
mined by the action of the current. The angler 
may be certain that this is so if that part above 
water shows a mass or network of bared roots. 
In this case the same procedure is followed, 
with the exception that the fly should be placed 
two feet, or even more, from the edge of the 
tangle, so that it may come the better within 
the angle of the fish's vision. It is quite obvious 
that a fly placed too close to the bank will be 
unseen by a fish occupying the hollow under it. 



WHERE AND WHEN TO FISH loi 

Great perseverance, even persistence, is required 
to induce a fish to leave a retreat of this sort in 
which he is snugly ensconced, but the attempt 
should not be abandoned while it is certain 
that no blunder has been made. Large trout 
love these places, and coaxing one out is worth a 
great deal of effort. 

Long before a rise is effected, warning of the 
possibility of its coming off is given by the 
flash of a trout as he leaves his position under 
the bank to assume another under the lane or 
hatch of frauds. The trout is often a better 
judge of distance than the angler, and when 
this action of the fish is observed, any attempt 
to make it easier for him by placing the fly 
closer to the bank will, in all probability, put 
a stop to further interest on his part. Diffi- 
cult as it is to disobey the impulse to place the 
fly where the fish was seen, it must be resisted, 
because, while there is a possibility that the fish 
may be risen, there is a greater likelihood that he 
will be put down. For this reason the original 
plan should be followed without deviation. 
Ask him to come to the fly, and, while he may 
seem diffident at first, he will finally accept the 
invitation. 

These swifts, or runs, as they are termed, 



I02 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 

vary in length from fifteen to fifty feet, or more, 
and the greater their length the more difficult 
they are for the angler to cover without showing 
himself. They are the narrows of the stream, 
and, where the water is found to be of unvary- 
ing depth, the fish may be looked for in any part 
of them. The steady, rapid flow of the current 
is admirably adapted to the use of the floating 
fly, and is particularly attractive to those im- 
patient ones who are unwilling to wait and 
watch the fly's slow progress on the quieter 
waters. Where the run being fished is dis- 
tinctly "lumpy" — that is, where its speed is 
greater because of the sharper incline in the 
stream bed, and miniature waves are formed 
that hurry down one after another — the floating 
fly will be more difficult to handle, but is very 
effective if well placed. 

It was once my good fortune to see a stretch 
of this character on the Neversink fished by a 
friend, Mr. Walter McGuckin, who has been my 
companion on many fishing excursions. He is 
one of the best hands with a rod that I have 
ever seen. His precision with the fly is remark- 
able, and I doubt if the grace and ease with 
which he handles his line can be excelled. His 
skill is fortified with a knowledge of trout gained 



WHERE AND WHEN TO FISH 103 

by over thirty-five years* experience on the 
waters of New York State. And, by the by, 
although he has used the wet fly for the greater 
portion of this time, he will now take his fish on 
the dry fly or not at all. 

The weather of four seasons had been crowded 
into a single day — and this at the end of May. 
Although no insects of any kind had been seen, 
we had been able to mark a fish down the day 
before, when he had shown himself for an in- 
stant. Having fished the smooth water on 
either side of the centre of the current with- 
out engaging the fish's attention, my friend 
decided to "ride his fly" on top of the waves in 
the very swiftest part of the current. To do 
this effectively, and without having too much 
of the leader on the water, the chance of expos- 
ing himself to the fish was taken, as the fly 
had to be delivered from almost a right angle. 
However, it all came off correctly, and the fly, 
seeming barely to touch the water as it danced 
along, appeared even more lifelike than a nat- 
ural insect. So, too, it must have appeared to 
the trout, for, after a number of casts had been 
made, a fish leaped directly from one wave to 
the one above, upon which was the fly, took it 
with mouth wide open and dived under. He 



I04 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 

was led gently to the still water below, and, 
although he proved to be a fine brown trout, his 
manner of taking the fly appealed to us more 
than his quality, and he was returned to the 
stream. The rise is the thing, and a dashing 
one of this sort makes the blood quicken as 
the dull chug of a fish taking under water 
never can. 

When a trout is taken on a floating fly from 
beneath the tangled rubbish which collects 
about the submerged roots of a fallen tree or 
stump, the angler may attribute his success to 
common sense and reason more than to his 
dexterity in placing the fly. If we assume that 
the fish is under the tangle, taking advantage 
of the shade and protection it affords, is it log- 
ical to expect him to worm his way up through 
it to take a fly? And, as his head is invariably 
pointed up-stream, is it at all likely that a fly 
placed behind him will be observed.'' The an- 
swer is obviously, no! When a trout occupies 
a position of this character, it is always because 
of its proximity to water which will permit 
him the greatest freedom in securing food or in 
escaping from danger. He is often unwilling, 
and frequently unable, to dart rapidly down- 
stream when moved by either of these considera- 



WHERE AND WHEN TO FISH 105 

tions, and the fly should be so presented that 
it will ask nothing uncommon of him. 

Many anglers fail to take fish from these justly 
famed and wisely chosen domiciles of big trout, 
because of their reluctance or inability to esti- 
mate the odds on or against the sporting propo- 
sition. They are not ready to risk a ten cent 
fly for the purpose of properly fishing a spot 
which has cost them a hundred times as much to 
reach. With a few desultory casts — placed, usu- 
ally, where they will do the least good and where, 
perhaps, a dozen others have been placed be- 
fore that same day, sometimes within the hour — 
they move on. Congratulating themselves that 
they are safely out of a tight place, or comfort- 
ing themselves with the thought that if a trout 
had been hooked it would have been lost any- 
way in the tangled mass, they abandon the 
spot — but always, I opine, with a lingering look 
backward. That these promising but difficult 
waters are prone to lure the angler into danger 
of hanging up solidly should make them the 
more interesting. When a good trout is taken 
from them, it is usually by a master of the craft, 
and no compassion need be wasted upon the 
fish — it has fallen into good and deserving hands. 

The common practice of careless anglers is to 



io6 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 

place the fly as close to the root or snag as they 
can, where there is but slight chance of its being 
seen by the fish — at least while it is upon the 
surface. Naturally, if the fly be sunk to a 
depth which will bring it within the horizontal 
plane of the fish's vision, it will be seen by him 
more readily. But, in fishing the floating fly, 
due allowance must be made for that portion 
of an imaginary circle enclosing the base of an 
inverted cone which will not come within view 
of the fish at the apex. This part will be 
directly over him, extending at an angle mea- 
sured by the diameter of the root or snag under 
which he is hiding, this snag and the bank nat- 
urally being included in the calculation. To 
reach a fish in this position, or rather to place 
the fly so that it will be seen by him, an imagi- 
nary semicircle should be drawn about the spot, 
with a diameter equal to at least twice the known 
diameter of the obstacle, and the fly fished on 
this curved line until the circumference has been 
covered. Unless the angler can determine ac- 
curately the depth of the water or the submerged 
portion of the log, root, or whatever the ob- 
stacle may be, any allowance made over and 
above what appears necessary from the calcu- 
lation will be to his advantage. 



WHERE AND WHEN TO FISH 107 

The down-stream part of the imaginary semi- 
circle will prove to be the least productive, for 
the reason that it is difficult to interest a fish 
from behind, he being more concerned about 
happenings in front of him. Nevertheless, con- 
siderable effort should be expended upon this 
part of it, as there is always a possibility of the 
fish being nearer the angler than has been cal- 
culated. Having fished it thoroughly, the water 
along the upper half of it may then be covered. 
The edge of this segment of the semicircle should 
be reached from a point nearly at right angles 
to its tangent, the angler retiring and assuming 
a position at a reasonable distance from the 
point being assailed. The rise may be looked 
for in that water where the swiftest part of 
the current flows directly toward and against 
the obstruction. And, as it is advantageous to 
have the fly cover a great distance upon the 
surface, it should be dropped a foot or two 
farther up-stream from the snag than when cast- 
ing to the side of it. If the flow against the 
obstruction be studied there will be discovered 
on the edge of the current nearest the angler a 
spot whence the fly, being placed correctly, will 
be carried down to the obstacle and around 
it and will thus be exposed to the view of the 



io8 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 

trout without danger of drag or of "hanging 
up." The fly alone must travel in this part of 
the current, and the longer it travels in sight of 
the fish the greater is the likelihood of interest- 
ing him. Barring, always, the chance of error, 
the probability of taking the fish increases 
with each cast made. The situation confront- 
ing the angler who fastens to a fish in this 
water is a very trying one, and, if a fish so 
hooked is to be saved for the creel, tender 
methods will not avail. He must be uncere- 
moniously bundled out and away from the dan- 
gerous spot, with every turn and crook of which 
he is familiar. 

Aside from the fact that fishing well out from 
an obstacle gives a fish beneath it a more cer- 
tain chance of seeing the angler's fly, the method 
has an additional advantage in that it lessens 
the risk of "hanging up" on one of the early 
casts — an accident that is very apt to cut short 
the angler's attempt if he tries to deliver his fly 
in places that are difficult to reach. But the 
angler who is unwilling to chance the loss of a 
fly by placing it close to a mass of drift or over- 
hanging branches is not over-anxious to take 
sizable fish, and his success is usually meagre 
in proportion to the risk assumed. 



WHERE AND WHEN TO FISH 109 

Fishing the "edge of the circle" will fre- 
quently be found to be more effective than the 
accepted practice of searching the intricate 
tangles and openings, and is advocated as sup- 
plemental thereto. 

A rift, properly speaking, is a shallow part 
of the stream where the current is quite rapid 
and more or less broken, and may be from ten 
yards in length to a mile or more. Where such 
water is spread from bank to bank and is very 
shallow, with but slight change in depth, little 
sport may be looked for. Random casts may 
bring a fish or two, but it is difficult to determine 
closely the positions in which trout may be; 
and, even if it were always possible to deter- 
mine their position, the size of the fish would 
not induce the angler to waste much effort 
upon them. A strong rift of fair depth, how- 
ever, probably harbours as many trout and will 
prove as productive to the average angler as 
any half dozen selected pools. 

The character of these rifts changes so fre- 
quently that it would be useless to attempt to 
describe where trout may be found in them when 
the water is high. Furthermore, a cast here and 
there is quite as likely to fall within sight of 
roving fish that are not averse to travelling some 



no THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 

distance to take the fly as a cast placed with 
intent to cover a particular spot. The most 
likely place, however, is along the side of the 
centre of the heaviest current, the fly being so 
placed that it will travel at the same speed as 
the leader and line, or a trifle faster. 

When the stream begins to fall, instinct warns 
the trout that he must take up less unstable 
quarters. He fixes upon a permanent home, and 
only moves therefrom when there is another rise 
in the stream or during his nocturnal roamings 
in search of food. 

In early spring, when the stream is high, 
trout are roaming about and may be found 
almost anywhere. When such conditions pre- 
vail it is not uncommon to hear anglers say 
that most of their fish were taken on the rifts. 
There are times during this season when it is 
more than likely that the rifts will be the only 
stretches that prove fruitful. When such is 
the case the angler, while he should never over- 
look the pools, should spend most of his time 
on the swift water. 

On one occasion, while fishing a stream which 
empties into the Delaware, near Narrowsburg, 
N. Y., I walked two miles down-stream to 
the stretch which I had chosen for my after- 



WHERE AND WHEN TO FISH in 

noon's sport. My first cast was made close to 
two o'clock, and at six o'clock I had taken over 
twenty fish, four of which, weighing over five 
and one half pounds, I killed, and twice as 
many more of the same size I returned to the 
stream. I got out of the stream about at the 
same spot I had entered it, having fished not 
over one hundred yards in four hours. The fish 
were taken in a broken rift; it seemed as if each 
rock in it was the hiding-place of a good one; 
and, though the current was quite swift, the 
floating fly was taken in each case slowly and 
deliberately. They were, it is true, not so large 
as one might have hoped to get in some of the 
deeper pools, but fair fish, nevertheless; and, 
as about half of them were rainbow trout, 
interest in the sport did not flag for a mo- 
ment. 

In a short rift or run forming the connecting- 
link between two pools, fish from both will be 
found occupying it when feeding, occasionally 
during the day, but usually at night, at which 
time minnows and other small fish may be 
picked up. Sometimes a good fish will remain 
in this water, but, because of the facility af- 
forded him for entering it from above or below, 
this is not often the case. While this stretch is 



112 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 

less fruitful than another which I will try to de- 
scribe, it should never be carelessly fished; and, 
if the instructions given in this chapter for fish- 
ing the swift are followed, the effort should not 
go unrewarded. Many of these short rifts are 
met with in a day's fishing and too often are 
slighted by those careless anglers who seem anx- 
ious only to have their flies upon the surface 
of pools. They should be given careful atten- 
tion, let conditions be what they may. 

There are other rifts where the current seems 
to be travelling at its greatest speed and where 
the fall is sharp and continuous. Where the de- 
cline ends abruptly a pool is formed; where it 
is gradual, and the force of the current is spent, 
it spreads, fan-like, over the formation of gravel 
and stones, finally flowing to one bank or the 
other, forming another pool or another rift. 
The fish occupying these longer rifts or rapids 
may not be the largest in the stream, but are 
likely to be well above the average in size and 
worth trying for. Along both sides of the swift- 
est part of the current the fly may be floated 
successfully. A long line is inadvisable unless 
the angler has mastered the difficulty of han- 
dling it under such circumstances, because it is 
returned very quickly. He should pick out the 



WHERE AND WHEN TO FISH 113 

"oily" looking spots upon which to place the 
fly, because there is less likelihood of its being 
drenched than if it is placed in the breaking 
water. 

Conforming to the custom among many 
anglers, and for lack of a better term, I include 
in the term "rifts" those parts of the stream 
which, in my opinion, are the finest of all places 
to fish. I refer to the stretches where great 
boulders, and small ones too, protruding above 
the surface of the water, divide the current, 
which flows quietly but steadily between and 
around them. 

In many cases it will be found that the banks 
on either side of such stretches, while not pre- 
cipitous, are higher than where they border the 
wider parts of the stream. The bed being nar- 
rower, the depth of water will be found greater. 
For these reasons such sections are chosen by 
trout when the stream is low. The shady part 
of this water, if there be any, should be 
approached first, particularly if the weather be 
bright and the water low. Each boulder, in 
turn, should be carefully and thoroughly searched 
with the fly. The first attempt may be made 
between any two rocks, not too widely sepa- 
rated, at the bottom or down-stream end of the 



114 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 

stretch, the fly being placed directly between 
and a foot above them. After several casts have 
been made the fly may be thrown a foot or two 
farther up-stream but in line with the previous 
casts. 

Fishing the fly between such boulders serves 
a double purpose. As the fish lie alongside or 
just above them, the fly is readily seen from 
either position, and if it is taken near one of 
them the angler is saved the necessity of fishing 
the others, the indications being that the fish are 
ready to feed and that they may be lured away 
from their stands. On most occasions, however, 
the fish will be found just above the boulder 
and on the shady side, and the fly, persistently 
delivered in that position, will attract many of 
them. 

The angler should remember that the back- 
water formed by the current flowing against the 
up-stream side of a boulder is a favourite haunt 
of brown trout, and should assume that the fish 
in the stretch occupy such positions until some 
indication is given that they do not. He should 
so present the fly that the fish is afforded a fair 
view of it and is not asked to come too far to 
take it. Rough water should be avoided when 
possible; but the fly should be floated on or near 



WHERE AND WHEN TO FISH 115 

the swiftest part of the current, and this will usu- 
ally be found close to the boulder. 

When the boulders in a stretch are irregularly 
scattered, the course of the current being de- 
flected by them so that the water twists and 
turns to escape the obstacles in its path, each 
one may harbour a good fish. Not one of them 
should escape the attention of the angler. Even 
those which appear to be in shallow water are 
worthy of consideration and sometimes yield 
large fish. The eddies behind them may be 
fished as much as he pleases, but he should not 
forget that on the up-stream side the greater 
number of fish will be found. He should avoid 
haste, and also the conclusion that because a 
fish is not risen in one spot there is none occu- 
pying it. If, by carelessness, he drives out a 
fish, his chance of taking one higher up in the 
same stretch is jeopardised. 

Where the current is direct in its flow, travel- 
ling, apparently, through what might be called 
a lane of boulders, the fish, if feeding, may be 
looked for in its middle along its entire course, 
as well as beside and above the rocks. Be- 
ginning at the bottom, the water for a very 
short distance may be covered from a point 
directly below; but after that the casts should 



Ii6 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 

be made at an angle of about forty-five degrees 
from either side, so that the fish, which may have 
been under the fly and have been unmoved by 
it, will not see the angler or his line. A sight of 
the line moves fish in a way that is very distress- 
ing to the angler responsible for it. 

Of similar character are those stretches where 
the rapid current dashes against and around 
the boulders in them. From a distance one of 
these stretches appears to be a mass of tossing 
water, where the dry fly might be expected to 
be hopelessly out of place. In such parts of 
the stream the fall is quite sharp, the water 
tumbling over a succession of diminutive falls, 
presenting, when viewed from below, an ap- 
pearance of great turbulence. Upon close in- 
spection, however, there will be found between 
the boulders miniature pools, popularly called 
"pockets," where the current, while strong, is 
not direct, a great part of its force being spent 
in seeking new channels. 

Beginning at the bottom row of the pockets, 
the tail of the lowest is cast over with as short 
a line as may be used consistently with pre- 
cision. Where the water glides swiftly over the 
lip of the pocket the fly should be placed above 
and in such position that in its course down- 



WHERE AND WHEN TO FISH 117 

Stream it will pass close to the boulder which is 
deflecting the deeper and stronger part of the cur- 
rent. As the fly passes the boulder it should be 
lifted quickly but quietly from the water. A false 
cast or two should be made to dry it, and then 
it should be placed in exactly the same position 
as before, this procedure being continued until 
a rise is effected or the angler is prompted to 
abandon the spot. The fly may then be ad- 
vanced a short distance at a time, the longi- 
tudinal position remaining the same, until the 
water in a straight line up-stream between the 
boulder and the head of the pocket is covered. 
The other side should then be fished in the same 
manner, and this without the angler having 
changed his own position, which should have 
been assumed at the start with reference to the 
availability of all parts of the water. 

Each pocket will present practically the same 
features. The depth may be greater in one, the 
current stronger in another, but the boulders 
at the head and tail should be the objective 
points for the angler's fly in every case. Where 
the depth is great or the current strong, more 
persistence upon the part of the angler is de- 
manded — compensated, as a rule, by a larger 
fish. Where the water, with but a gentle wrin- 



ii8 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 

kle, slips by the boulder and does not break 
into a fall, the fly should be placed a yard above 
and directly in front of the boulder, and should 
not be retrieved until it has passed some distance 
down-stream. A fish in the dead water may 
often be tempted to come down after the fly, and 
when this happens the whole scene is enacted in 
plain view. There is nothing quite so exciting 
as this in the whole sport of angling except, per- 
haps, casting to and inducing a fish to rise that 
is lying in plain view. 

Trout frequently take up stations in the back- 
water or eddy which is formed under and behind 
the miniature falls in these rapid stretches. 
When in this position they are inaccessible to 
the dry fly angler. They belong entirely to the 
wet fly man who is familiar enough with the 
habits of the fish to drop his fly above the brink 
of the fall, allowing it to be carried over and 
then under the water, so that, if it is caught in 
the backwater, it is presented directly to the 
fish, which rarely refuses to take one that comes 
so easily. When evening comes on, however, 
the dry fly angler has his opportunity. The 
sizable fish which select these retreats during 
the bright days drop down-stream as darkness 
approaches, and, if not cruising, will be found 



WHERE AND WHEN TO FISH 119 

just where the current spends itself, or under 
and below the little eddies to the side. These 
eddies should be scrutinised closely if insects 
are upon the water. The presence of the fish 
will be indicated by the rise to the flies which 
collect there. Should there be no insects about, 
the fish may be induced to rise by casting re- 
peatedly in the quieting water. 

Perhaps no water on our American streams 
appeals more to the average angler than a beau- 
tiful pool; and yet rarely does this water fulfil 
the promise it seems to hold out. That pools 
do contain trout, and sometimes very large 
ones, is true; but the fact that the fish may re- 
main unmoved, after every artifice of the angler 
has been exhausted in an attempt to induce them 
to rise, is very discouraging. This not unusual 
experience may be the foundation for the belief 
many anglers have that the larger fish have 
ceased to be surface feeders and cannot be 
persuaded to rise to a small insect. To get 
one of these big fish with the floating fly the 
angler must have "luck"— that luck which 
brings him upon the stream when the fish are 
near the surface. Success on waters of this kind 
depends quite as much upon the mood of the 
fish as upon the skill of the angler. 



I20 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 

If the fish are feeding, or are ready to feed, 
upon winged insects, they will be found in a posi- 
tion from which the angler's fly may be seen, in 
which event he may hope to bring them to the 
artificial. But no amount of skill will induce a 
rise if the fish are hidden in the strongholds with 
which these rocky pools abound. It is absurd 
to expect that a big fish, lying near the bottom 
of a pool which may have six or eight feet of 
water in it, will come that distance upon the 
first appearance of a tiny morsel of food upon 
the surface. A fish that has retired to deep 
water is not interested in food; or, if he is, only 
caddis larvae, dobsons, etc., that may be picked 
up on the bottom, or some other sort of food 
considerably under the surface, will attract his 
attention. 

Trout fortunate enough to escape the many 
dangers which beset them in our streams grow 
to great size and become largely nocturnal 
feeders. Night "feeding is an instinct of the fish, 
though the smaller ones are forced by the ap- 
petite of youth to seek food in daylight, also. 
This is why a pool that looks as if it should 
contain a big fish (and probably does) yields 
but a few dandiprats when the condition of the 
water has been unchanged for any length of 



WHERE AND WHEN TO FISH 121 

time. The big fish are not ravenous enough 
to be seeking food all of the time, and the little 
chaps have undisputed possession of the open 
water. A wonderful change in the mood of 
these large fish takes place when the stream 
is freshened after a fall of rain. The artificial 
fly is then taken in the most deliberate and cer- 
tain manner — taken by the fish as if they knew 
it as a member of a family with which they have 
been acquainted all their lives, although it may 
not bear the slightest resemblance to any living 
insect. At such times the angler is apt to lose 
faith in the much-vaunted wariness and cunning 
of the fish and may foolishly ascribe his remark- 
able success to his own skill. Whether the 
change of water invigorates trout, or Instinct 
tells them that they may expect food to be 
washed down to them, it is certain that the de- 
sire to feed is aroused, and they are at these 
times neither fastidious nor discriminating. 

Several years ago on a stream in Sullivan 
County, the name of which I have promised to 
forget, I was in the brook just after the top of a 
flood and found the fish so willing that, for the 
particular day, at any rate, I was ready to believe 
the story told of some northern waters where 
the fish "were so numerous and so hungry that 



122 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 

one had to hide behind a tree to bait the hook." 
Nearly every cast brought a slow, deliberate, 
businesslike rise — all large fish for so small a 
stream. I killed two fish that weighed one 
pound five ounces, and one pound nine ounces, 
respectively. One of these fish had two crawfish 
in its stomach, freshly taken; the other had a 
small stone catfish, pretty well digested; there 
was nothing else in either — not an insect of any 
sort. The next day was practically a repetition 
of the previous one — two fish killed, both just 
over one pound five ounces. The stomach and 
gullet of one were absolutely empty; the other 
contained a single June-bug, freshly taken, and, 
among a number of other insects, a water- 
strider, long thought by anglers to form no part 
of the trout's menu. I have never been able 
to quite satisfy myself that this particular ex- 
perience was of any great value except that it 
strengthened my belief that trout are moved to 
feed by changes in the stream caused by flood 
waters running down. Perhaps, also, it tended 
to prove that there were more big fish in the 
stream than I would have believed without the 
experience. All my fish were taken at the lips 
of the pools which abound in this rock-bedded 
stream, and I devoted my time exclusively to 



WHERE AND WHEN TO FISH 123 

those places, in the hope of securing a really 
good fish. No small fish rose to the fly, although 
they are a-plenty in the stream. They had 
evidently been driven to other water by fear of 
their older brothers. 

The greatest essential to success in fly fishing, 
wet or dry, is stream knowledge; by which I 
mean, not necessarily familiarity with the stream 
actually being fished, but that general knowl- 
edge, based on careful study of the habits of 
the fish, that enables the angler to select the 
proper part of the current in which to place 
the fly. Such selection is of the greatest im- 
portance when pools are being fished — it is next 
in importance to keeping out of sight of the 
trout. Under no circumstances should a pool 
be approached with the idea of placing the first 
cast in what appears to be the likeliest spot, as 
there is always danger of frightening the fish 
off if he should happen to be somewhere else in 
the pool. Before a fly is placed on the water, a 
careful study should be made of its depths and 
currents. If the large fish are surface feeding, 
they may be looked for in two places par- 
ticularly: at the very lip of the pool or in the 
eddies at the head. 

The indication that a fish is feeding at the lip 



124 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 

or bottom of a pool is unmistakable. While the 
actual taking of the insect may be accomplished 
quietly, the fish lies sometimes so close to the 
surface where the water spills out that the 
sharp recovery necessary in the quickening 
water reveals his position. This is a difficult 
fish to take, for the reason that, lying as he 
does in the shallower water — which, as a rule, 
has a smooth surface — he is very apt to see the 
angler. A long line must be used, which adds 
to the difficulty, as it is almost impossible to 
keep the line out of the swift water below the 
lip which snatches the fly away from the fish 
before he has even had a good look at it. A 
proper presentation may be made, however, and 
this annoying drag avoided, if the cast is so de- 
livered that the line falls upon one of the stones 
or boulders which form the lip of the pool. The 
fly will then float naturally, without being pulled, 
until it reaches the point where the water spills 
out, which point it must be allowed to pass 
before being retrieved. If no rise is effected 
the cast may be repeated, and continued as long 
as the fish is still in position. No connection 
need be looked for, however, unless the fly is 
placed fairly close to and above the fish, and 
marked acceleration of pace avoided. Where 



WHERE AND WHEN TO FISH 125 

there are no kindly boulders to help the angler 
in his deception, a chance — though a remote 
one — may be taken by presenting the fly in the 
hope that it may be taken at once, because of 
its accurate delivery, and before there is any 
drag upon it. 

If, at the moment of the angler's arrival at a 
pool, there are no insects upon the water there 
will be no rise to indicate the position of a fish. 
But it does not follow that one is not in position 
and ready to feed. In this case even greater 
care should be exercised in approaching the 
lip of the pool than if a rise had been actually 
observed. If the angler does his work well, and 
has a sharp eye, the fish may often be seen lying 
along the side of the current as the water spills 
out, or just above some small boulder or other 
obstruction to the water's course. Sometimes 
the boulders may be completely under water, 
but their presence is denoted by a wrinkling of 
the surface, and the fish may be looked for just 
above them. 

The angler must work out the problem of 
properly presenting the fly at each pool. In 
no case, however, where the fish is seen or his 
position is indicated by his activities should 
the fly be cast directly over him. It should 



126 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 

always be cast to one side or the other, slightly 
above, and at an angle. This suggestion may 
be safely followed in every case where fish are 
seen and it is possible to so cast from the posi- 
tion occupied by the angler. When the fish are 
found to be occupying positions at the tail of 
pools — whether it be early morning, or just at 
dusk, or, as it sometimes happens, at midday — 
they are almost invariably ready to feed; and, 
while not always interested in insects, they are 
frequently induced to take the artificial because 
it appears close to them. Though there may 
have been no indication that the large fish have 
dropped back from the deeper water to the lip 
of the pool, the angler's actions should always 
be governed by the assumption that they are in 
that position until he is convinced that they are 
not. If he has been incautious the widening 
wake marking the fish's swift dart up-stream 
makes it quite certain that the hope of taking 
a trout from that particular pool must be de- 
ferred. Small fish occupying this "tail posi- 
tion" are as easily frightened off by sight of 
the angler as the large ones are, and their 
alarm, being communicated to the fish above, 
destroys whatever chance there might other- 
wise have been on the upper water. It is the 



WHERE AND WHEN TO FISH 127 

carelessness with which the average angler over- 
looks this important part of the pool that is re- 
sponsible for the many failures registered on 
what should be productive water. 

It frequently happens, particularly when the 
water is low and bright and has not been re- 
cently disturbed, that trout are lying a few 
yards above the lip of the pool in the quiet 
water. The presence of the fish is disclosed by 
the wake made by him in his rush for a fly that 
has been presented somewhere near him. The 
direction the fish is taking is easily discernible, 
and, if he is headed down-stream — ^which is 
often the case — the situation is one that requires 
the gentlest possible handling. The angler 
should remain motionless, leaving his fly upon 
the water even at the risk of having the line 
become entangled about his feet, because the 
fish, being headed in the angler's direction, will 
be quick to detect any motion; and the rod 
should not be moved under any consideration. 
The fish, after having composed himself, will 
be headed up-stream again and, if not actually 
seen by the angler, may be assumed to be where 
the wake ended. 

It is quite usual for a fish, after having made 
a rush toward the fly, to abandon the chase 



128 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 

when the fly approaches too closely to the spill, 
to assume a position where he stopped, and to 
wait there for another insect to come down. 
This is the angler's opportunity; but if it is 
to be of any advantage to him deliberation 
must mark his every action. The fly must 
be dropped gently over the marked spot and 
should not be retrieved until it has passed be- 
low the rod. It will be difficult to overcome 
the impulse to retrieve the fly, even though it 
is getting farther beyond control all the time; 
but, as the fish has possibly been interested in 
it and, having turned, will immediately detect 
any action of the rod and be off at once, such 
impulse must be resisted. By stripping the 
line in with the disengaged hand, the fly may be 
recovered and presented again. Until the fly is 
taken by the fish, or until the angler is con- 
vinced that it will not be taken, every motion 
should be very deliberate. If the fish is not 
risen on the first cast, each succeeding throw 
should be made a little farther up-stream than 
the previous one, until the point where the fish 
was first seen is reached. The fly should not be 
retrieved in any case until it has passed over 
the water covered before — and it should travel 
in the same lane after each cast. A fish spotted 



WHERE AND WHEN TO FISH 129 

as described will surely fall to the rod if the 
angler is careful, and his taking will afford some 
of the most pleasurable moments spent upon the 
stream. 

When the angler decides to abandon the lower 
end of the pool, it is much wiser for him to use 
a longer line to reach the upper water than it 
is to advance up-stream, because by wading up 
he may frighten a fish lying in the part of the 
pool already covered and thus warn off the 
ones above. The entire pool should be care- 
fully scanned for indications of feeding fish 
before any attempt is made to cast over the 
upper part of it. The eddies on either side of 
the main current at the head of the pool should 
be given particular attention. Should a large 
fish inhabit the pool the eddy will be his 
dining-room. He will occupy it, however, only 
at certain intervals, and, if the angler should 
be fortunate enough to arrive at a time when 
he is seeking food, it ought to yield a fine 
trout. Rarely meeting competition because of 
their size, the fish in these eddies are very de- 
liberate in their feeding — securing such insects 
as may be on the surface with but little effort. 
For this reason many opportunities are missed 
by the unobservant angler who fails to notice 



I30 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 

the gentle wrinkling of the surface, or the small 
bubble left upon it, as the fish sucks in some 
tiny insect, and by the careless angler who sees 
the slight disturbance, and attributes it to a 
small fish. Some of the largest fish I have ever 
killed gave no indication of their size as the fly 
was taken, and not until they had fastened did I 
realise how heavy they were. The slightest in- 
dication of action in the eddy should be inves- 
tigated thoroughly with the fly; for, while only 
a small fish may be taken in one, the next may 
produce "the big fish." 

Throwing to a fish in the eddy of a pool re- 
quires some care, but a close study of the cur- 
rents will make it comparatively easy. Trout 
always lie with heads to the current, and those 
in an eddy are no exception; consequently, they 
will be headed down-streamy or against the cur- 
rent, which is flowing up. This position of the 
fish must be taken into consideration when the 
fly is to be presented from below, and the 
angler will find that his greatest difficulty will 
be in keeping out of sight. How he may do 
this he must decide for himself, but, even at 
the risk of being seen, he should cast up-stream 
from directly below the fish; i. e., from a position 
on the same side of the swift current as the eddy 



WHERE AND WHEN TO FISH 131 

he is fishing. If the fly is dropped in that part 
of the current which is turning up-stream it 
will be carried to the fish in a natural manner, 
and if care has been taken in placing the line 
loosely in the comparatively dead water below, 
the progress of the fly will not be impeded. If 
the fish has been well spotted, the fly should be 
dropped a foot or two below him, and always 
in that current which will bring it directly to 
him. In this particular situation the first cast 
should be the telling one, because if the fly is 
not taken it is not returned to the angler im- 
mediately, and its retrieve against the current 
is likely to be disturbing to the fish. If the fly 
has been carried over and beyond the spot 
where the rise was seen, it does not follow that 
it has passed over the fish and been refused. 
He may be backing up under it, and may take 
it a yard from where he is presumed to be, if it 
travel that far. However, if satisfied that the 
fly is not going to appeal to the fish — which con- 
clusion should not be reached until the fly is no 
longer in a natural position — the retrieve may 
be made very slowly and carefully, after which 
the angler may wait a minute or two, or until 
the fish rises again. 

Sometimes the fly will be carried by the eddy 



132 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 

toward the swift, down-stream current and be 
caught in it. In this event, it is easily retrieved 
without disturbing the water in the vicinity of 
the fish, and may be presented again immediately. 
A fish should not be given up while continuing 
to rise steadily; he will become accustomed to the 
artificial, and will take it in time, if its action is 
not unnatural. An eddy should be fished in the 
same careful manner whether a fish is seen feed- 
ing in it or not; but, in the latter case, while a 
fish may be in position and ready to feed, the 
varying currents and the difficulty encountered 
in attempting to retrieve the fly delicately 
against them destroy its natural action, and 
prevent, to a certain extent, proper simulation 
of a ** hatch." The fly can cover but a short 
distance before it is necessary to retrieve it, and 
this makes for rather tedious work, because it 
must be brought back slowly and gently until 
it is out of the eddy before it is taken from the 
water. In this connection, it may be borne in 
mind that it is possible to decoy a fish from the 
eddy by placing the fly on the edge of the swift, 
down-stream current nearest the eddy, permit- 
ting it to float down three or four yards each 
time. If a half dozen casts have brought no re- 
sponse, it is better to discontinue casting than 



WHERE AND WHEN TO FISH 133 

to risk driving the fish to another part of the 
pool, and thus disturb some other fish that might 
have fallen to the rod later had it remained 
unmolested. 



CHAPTER V 
THE IMITATION OF THE NATURAL INSECT 

Within a very recent period, it has been as- 
serted, upon scientific authority, that fish are 
colour-bKnd. If this be true, though it is diffi- 
cult for the mere angler to understand how it 
may be proven, the theory of those who believe 
that it is necessary to imitate in the artificial 
fly the colour of the insects upon which trout 
feed must be abandoned. 

Writing upon the subject no longer ago than 
1904, Sir Herbert Maxwell, certainly a compe- 
tent observer, said: "My own experience goes 
to convince me that salmon, and even highly 
educated chalk-stream trout, are singularly in- 
different to the colours of flies offered to them, 
taking a scarlet or blue fly as readily as one 
closely assimilated to the natural insect. Prob- 
ably the position of the floating lure, between 
the fish's eye and the light, interferes with any 
nice discrimination of hue from reflected rays." 

Cotton and the many angling writers who fol- 
lowed him all dwelt with insistence upon the ne- 

134 



IMITATION OF THE NATURAL INSECT 135 

cessity for close imitation, especially in relation to 
colour. In 1740 John Williamson stated the prin- 
ciple in the following words: "... as the great 
Difficulty is to obtain the Colour of the Fly which 
the Fish take at the Instant of your Angling, it is 
impossible to give any certain Directions on that 
Head; because several Rivers and Soils are 
haunted by peculiar Sorts of Flies, and the Flies 
that come usually in such a Month of the Year, 
may the succeeding Year come almost a Month 
sooner or later as the Season proves colder or hot- 
ter. Tho' some Fish change their Fly once or 
twice in one Day, yet usually they seek not for an- 
other Sort, till they have for some Days glutted 
themselves with a former, which is commonly 
when those Flies are near Death, or ready to go 
out." Then, giving some simple instructions 
in regard to tying flies, he quotes Walton: 
"But to see a Fly made by an Artist is the best 
Instruction; after which the Angler may walk 
by the River, and mark what Flies fall on the 
Water that Day, and catch one of them, if he 
see the Trouts leap at a Fly of that Kind. ..." 
Williamson's book was practically a compila- 
tion, containing the best of what had been writ- 
ten by anglers before him, together with his own 
observations. 



136 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 

From Williamson's time no work on fly fish- 
ing seemed complete unless instructions were 
given in the art of fly making, with a description 
of the sorts and colours of furs, silks, feathers, 
etc., suitable for the imitation of the natural 
insects held to be so necessary; but until the 
appearance in 1836 of Ronalds's "Fly Fishers' 
Entomology," it cannot be said of any author 
that the instructions given by him were the re- 
sult of scientific study. Ronalds was most 
thorough in his investigation, and his experi- 
ments in regard to the senses of taste and hear- 
ing of trout are extremely interesting and in- 
structive. While his conclusions run counter to 
the opinions of many other angling writers, to 
my mind they appear logical and are con- 
vincing; and I think he proves that trout do 
not have the senses of taste and hearing de- 
veloped to the degree of acuteness attributed to 
them by other writers. Following some advice 
as to the choice of flies, Ronalds says : " It should 
never be forgotten that, let the state of weather 
or the water be what it may, success in fly 
fishing very much depends upon showing the 
fish a good imitation, both in colour and size, 
of that insect which he has recently taken; an 
exact resemblance of the shape does not seem to 



IMITATION OF THE NATURAL INSECT 137 

be quite as essential a requisite as that of colour, 
since the former varies according to the position 
of the insect either in or upon the water; but 
a small fly is usually employed when the water is 
fine, because the fish is then better enabled to 
detect an imitation and because the small fly 
is more easily imitated. The resemblance of 
each particular colour, etc., is not required to 
be so exact as in the case of a large fly." Not- 
withstanding his evident preference for colour 
over shape or form, Ronalds was careful to 
have the proportions of his imitations exact. 
The many editions of his work that have been 
issued, and the frequent reference made to him 
by later writers, is evidence that his opinions are 
held in high regard by anglers. 

About three years before the "Fly Fishers' 
Entomology" appeared. Professor James Ren- 
nie, in his "Alphabet of Scientific Angling," 
ridiculed the theory of imitation. He says: "It 
is still more common, however, for anglers to 
use artificial baits, made in imitation or pre- 
tended imitation, of those that are natural. I 
have used the phrase 'pretended imitation' as 
strictly applicable to by far the greater number 
of what are called by anglers artificial flies, 
because these rarely indeed bear the most dis- 



I* ^ 



138 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 

tant resemblance to any living fly or insect what- 
ever, though, if exact imitation were an object, 
there can be little doubt that it could be ac- 
complished much more perfectly than is ever 
done in any of the numerous artificial flies 
made by the best artists in that line of work. 
The fish, indeed, appear to seize an artificial fly 
because, when drawn by the angler along the 
water, it has the appearance of being a living 
insect, whose species is quite unimportant, as all 
insects are equally welcome, though the larger 
they are, as in the case of grasshoppers, so much 
the better, because they then furnish a better 
mouthful. The aim of the angler, accordingly, 
ought to be to have his artificial fly calculated, 
by its form and colours, to attract the notice of 
the fish, in which case he has a much greater 
chance of success than by making the greatest 
efforts to imitate any particular species of fly." 
That this statement caused considerable dis- 
cussion — probably because it was made by a 
professor of zoology — is evidenced by the ap- 
pearance in 1838 of "A True Treatise of the Art 
of Fly-Fishing," written by those strong advo- 
cates of the imitation theory, William Shipley 
and Edward Fitzgibbon, who devoted a whole 
chapter to controverting the professor's theories, 



IMITATION OF THE NATURAL INSECT 139 

calling upon the writings of Bainbridge, Best, 
Taylor, Davy, Ronalds, and others in support 
of their opinions, concluding with the state- 
ment that "they flattered themselves that they 
had triumphantly done so." It seems to me 
that, though they argued with vigour and 
vehemence, they have proven nothing, conclu- 
sively, except their ability to place a construction 
upon the professor's statements that afforded 
them an opportunity for the discussion. A care- 
ful reading of Rennie shows that he merely ex- 
pressed the opinion that the greatest efforts of 
the angler should be to make his fly one that 
would attract the notice of the fish by its form 
and colour, rather than to imitate any particular 
species of fly. To be sure, we have no knowledge 
of what his ideas with regard to form and colour 
were; we may assume, however, that he believed 
that if a red fly four inches long with yellow and 
blue wings and a green tail would attract the fish, 
such would be the fly to use. The illustration is 
absurd, of course; but we have a right to infer 
that his belief was that any form or colour which 
would attract the fish would do. He advanced 
the theory that the trout took the artificial be- 
cause they were near-sighted; apparently he 
did not believe that they took it because they 
were colour-blind. 



I40 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 

The English creation known as the "Alex- 
andra," representing absolutely nothing in in- 
sect life (at least to eye of man), strongly sup- 
ports Professor Rennie's theory. Its effect upon 
trout has been so deadly that it has been sug- 
gested by many English anglers that its use 
should be barred upon some streams. In the 
same class with the Alexandra might be placed 
our own American nondescript, the "Parma- 
cheene Belle," the invention of Mr. Henry P. 
Wells, whose theory was, "An imitation of some 
favourite food is in itself sufficient under all cir- 
cumstances, provided it is so conspicuous as 
readily to be seen . . . and the fly in question 
was made, imitating the colour of the belly fin 
of the trout itself." This theory may be sound 
enough, but in this particular application of it 
one is asked to believe that the trout is inor- 
dinately fond of the belly fin of its relatives, 
which seems to me to be straining credulity 
overfar. To some old cannibalistic fish these 
fins may be attractive. I do not deny it, for I 
do not know; but in my own experience I have 
not known them to be plucked or bitten from 
the victim; nor are they found floating about 
loosely. The Parmacheene Belle is undoubtedly 
an imitation of the belly fin of a trout, but it is 



IMITATION OF THE NATURAL INSECT 141 

not an imitation of any favourite food of the 
fish. Its value as a lure is well known to those 
who fish in the lakes and streams of Canada and 
Maine, but trout do not take it because they 
recognise it as a familiar article of diet. They 
probably take it because of its brilliant colour, 
in which respect it embodies Professor Rennie's 
idea of what a "fly" should be. Being made up 
of reds and whites, it probably reflects more 
light than do sombre-hued patterns and, conse- 
quently, is the more easily seen. As a rule, it 
is taken under water, and most often after it 
has sunk to considerable depth. 

Speaking of the Alexandra, Mr. Halford says : 
"It certainly is not the imitation of any in- 
digenous insect known to entomologists; pos- 
sibly the bright silver body moving through the 
river gives some idea of the gleam of a minnow. 
Long ere this its use should have been prohib- 
ited on every stream frequented by the bona- 
fide fly-fisherman, as it is a dreadful scourge 
to any water, scratching and frightening an im- 
mense proportion of the trout which are tempted 
to follow it." If this means anything, it means 
that trout are at first attracted by the fly or 
lure, but upon closer inspection discover the 
cheat, and, taking it uncertainly, are often 



142 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 

slightly pricked, or, refusing it entirely, are 
sometimes scraped by the hook as they turn 
away. This criticism, it seems to me, might be 
directed equally well against any creation of 
feathers, fur, and tinsel that is fished sunk. 

While rather off the main point, I may be so 
bold as to say that, while the sunk fly method 
does not appeal to me at all, I cannot readily see 
that it scratches many fish or frightens them 
in any way; and, if it did, the recollection of the 
affair would not linger long enough in the trout's 
memory to injure the chances of his being taken 
the next day on a dry fly, or even on another 
sunk one. Mr. G. E. M. Skues, who advocates 
the use of the sunk fly on the same streams 
where correct imitations are presented to rising 
fish, says that he presents imitations of the 
nymphae in the positions occupied by the nat- 
urals; that he rarely scratches a fish, and hooks 
but very few foul. The inference in this case 
might be that the trout fastens to an imitation 
more readily than to an Alexandra — one really 
deluding the fish by its natural appearance, the 
other exciting only its curiosity or ire. 

While exhibiting an admirable filial loyalty, 
many of us have been prone to be governed 
by tradition, and the education we received in 



IMITATION OF THE NATURAL INSECT 143 

the beginning from our fathers. With few ex- 
ceptions, we have trudged along the beaten 
path, looking rarely to right or left, but back- 
ward a great deal, using the same flies our 
fathers used before us, emulating their methods, 
and admiring their successes. We have over- 
looked the fact that we are contending with 
conditions that have decreased the number of 
native trout, and that would have taxed even 
the great skill with which we have endowed 
those of loving memory. I remember that one 
of my father's favourite flies was the Queen-of- 
the- Waters. Naturally it became one of mine, 
and I used it religiously — remembering its suc- 
cesses, forgetting its failures. A story connected 
with this fly may prove interesting, and perhaps 
tend to show how close I was to becoming a 
confirmed colourist, or, rather, a strong believer 
in the trout's ability to detect colour. 

Many years ago, while preparing for a short 
trip to the stream, I discovered that I did not 
have a single Queen-of-the-Waters in my fly 
book. On my way to the railroad station I 
stopped in a tackle shop and asked for a dozen 
of that pattern. The clerk was unable to find 
any in stock, but suggested that I try a dozen 
called King-of-the- Waters. Although there was. 



144 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 

in fact, little similarity between these two pat- 
terns except in the name itself, this seemed 
sufficient to my ignorant mind, and I took them. 
The following day, upon the stream, my cast of 
three flies (I was a wet fly angler then) was 
never without a King-of-the- Waters — and not a 
fish did I take with it. I attributed my non- 
success to the pattern of fly, and it never oc- 
curred to me at the time that very few fish were 
taken at all that day, although many anglers 
were on the stream. The next morning, when I 
opened my fly book, I found that a great deal 
of the red dye used upon the silk body of the 
fly had come off on the drying pad. The body 
of the fly was now a beautiful pink. Out of 
curiosity I wet the fly, and the pink body 
turned a brilliant red. I thought the thing 
over, and decided that I had stumbled upon an 
explanation of the failure of the fly to take the 
day before. The body of the fly originally was 
red and was evidently meant to appear so to 
the trout. When wet, however, it had turned a 
muddy brown. With most of the colour washed 
out, the fly turned a darker shade when wet, 
became really red, and stayed red. I deter- 
mined that if this was the colour the trout 
wanted, they should have it, and I soaked a half 



IMITATION OF THE NATURAL INSECT 145 

dozen flies in a tumbler of water, pressing and 
squeezing every bit of dyestuff out of them that 
I could. They were all pink-bodied when I had 
finished with them. Recollections of the fol- 
lowing day are still fresh in my mind. The fish 
seemed frantic to get my fly. I used one as 
the stretcher, and it was taken almost to the 
utter exclusion of the other patterns above. I 
remember that, while sitting upon a boulder in 
midstream tying another pink fly on in place of 
the hand dropper, as an experiment, I lost it in 
the swift current, and felt almost as badly as 
if I had lost a friend. The fly used as a dropper 
was taken readily, but not so often as when 
used as a stretcher, yet often enough to make me 
feel that I had made a great discovery. Since 
then, however, I have often wondered if it 
really were a discovery, or if, indeed, the old 
Queen-of-the-Waters, under the circumstances 
and conditions prevailing at the time, would not 
have been just as killing, and probably just as 
great a failure the preceding day. 

Many years have passed, and I am still using 
the pink-bodied fly, modified in form, however, 
but never the Queen-of-the-Waters. I cannot 
say that I think it takes any better than the 
Whirling Dun or the Pale Evening Dun, which 



146 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 

are among my favourites. Frequently, when I 
have found the pink-bodied fly taking well, I 
have changed immediately to one of the others, 
and have found no marked difference in their 
taking qualities. The pink-bodied fly in its 
present form — that is, tied in accordance with 
my own practice — has upright wings and a tail, 
and in appearance is not unlike the Red Spinner. 
It has been dubbed the "Pink Lady" by one of 
my friends, a name that it seems destined to 
carry, as it has already appeared by that name 
in a tackle dealer's catalogue. As to whether 
or not the trout is attracted by the brilliancy 
of the body, or by the rib of gold tinsel that 
gives it a fillip other flies lack, or because it 
bears a fairly close resemblance to the Red 
Spinner, I cannot venture an opinion. That it 
is a taking fly, however, I have demonstrated 
many times upon the stream. I am inclined to 
believe that its typical form, rather than its 
colour, appeals to the fish. Opposed to my opin- 
ion, however, is that of many of my friends who 
use it, one of whom, in particular, contending 
that the pink-bodied fly will take fish any- 
where at any time. He firmly believes that its 
colour constitutes its charm. It is an interest- 
ing fact, considered in this connection, that the 



IMITATION OF THE NATURAL INSECT 147 

gentleman himself is, to some extent, colour- 
blind. 

Objects floating upon the surface of a shallow 
stream reflect the colour of the bottom in vary- 
ing degree, according to their density. A number 
of white objects floating above a moss or grass 
covered bottom reflect different tones of green, 
that one which is most opaque showing the 
darkest shade, and each one reflecting a lighter 
tone in proportion to the amount of light that 
filters through it. It is true, of course, that a 
yellow insect floating over this same bottom 
would reflect a shade of green all its own, and 
it is but natural to assume that if the same shade 
or tint of yellow is used in the artificial, its em- 
ployment would more nearly approximate the 
effect of reflection upon the natural insect; but 
if the exact shade or tint is important, the 
effect is not produced unless the same amount 
of light passes through both natural and arti- 
ficial. The use of the hook itself precludes the 
possibility of any delicate imitation of nature, 
and the infinite pains anglers have taken to 
make representations of the segmentations of 
many of the Ephemeridcs by using quill windings 
for the body would seem to be for naught, 
except in so far as they affect the artistic eye 



148 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 

of those using them. Many such flies undoubt- 
edly take fish, but I dare say not because 
they represent particularly the colour of the 
natural. 

It would seem, therefore, that the most im- 
portant consideration of the fly-tier who seeks 
to imitate the colour of the natural insect should 
be the materials to be used. Consequently he 
should select only those which are transparent, 
or at least translucent, and that reflect the sur- 
roundings as readily as the natural insect does as 
it floats down-stream on the surface of the water. 
It is, of course, quite obvious that the artificial, 
no matter how cleverly it may be fashioned, 
cannot present the same appearance of trans- 
lucence as the natural; but one skilfully made 
of the appropriate materials will approximate 
it nearly enough for all practical purposes. I 
believe that the effect produced by reflection of 
the colour of the bottom is not so marked upon 
an insect resting with its legs upon the surface 
and its body above it, as it is upon the insect 
with its body directly on the surface. If the 
artificial could always be cast so that it rested 
only upon its hackle, perhaps the difference be- 
tween it and the natural would not be so marked. 
This may be accomplished, perhaps, by those 



IMITATION OF THE NATURAL INSECT 149 

anglers who are wedded to fishing the rise, and 
who keep their fly absolutely dry until a fish is 
seen feeding, but it is asking too much of those 
who enjoy seeing their fly upon the water over 
likely places. 

Although, in certain species of insects which 
interest anglers, the difference in size and colour 
between the sexes is not great, in others it is 
quite marked; and some anglers are of the 
opinion that an imitation of the female of a 
species is a more killing pattern than one of the 
male. A most ingenious explanation of the fish's 
preference for the female insect was offered by 
the Reverend J. G. Wood in his "Insects at 
Home," published in 1871. He says: "Should 
the reader be an angler, he will recognise in the 
female pseudimago the 'Green Drake,' and in 
the perfect insect the *Grey Drake.* The angler 
only cares for the female insects, because the 
fish prefer them, laden as they are with eggs, to 
the males, which have little in them but air." 
The statement certainly endows the trout with 
a fine sense of discrimination and taste. That 
the female insects are preferred by the trout 
may possibly be true, but it is to be regretted 
that the author did not explain how he arrived at 
the conclusion that they are preferred because 



ISO THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 

they carry eggs. If he was an angler himself, it 
was probably the result of personal experience 
in the use of either the insect or its imitation; 
or autopsies upon fish may have revealed the 
fact. In the latter case, the discovery of a pre- 
ponderating number of females in the stomach 
of the fish would naturally influence his opinion; 
but even this discovery could hardly be said to 
prove that the trout had a preference for the 
female because it was "laden with eggs." If 
our author did not fish for trout, his knowledge 
may have been based either upon information 
obtained from some angler or upon his own ob- 
servation of feeding fish; in the latter case, being 
more of an entomologist than an angler, it is 
not unreasonable to suppose that his interest 
was centred upon the insect, and not upon the 
fish. Having seen a number of females taken 
in succession — probably at a time when they 
were predominant — the fact would indicate to 
his scientific mind a preference for the sex on the 
part of the fish. 

If the fish does in fact prefer the female, the 
explanation may be found in the life history of 
the May-fly, which indicates that the male, some 
time after the sexual function is performed, falls 
lifeless, while the female, shortly after intercourse, 



IMITATION OF THE NATURAL INSECT 151 

hovers over the water, and, touching the surface 
with that part of her body carrying the now 
fertile eggs, deposits them as nature has decreed. 
It is this action, made in a succession of dips, 
the insect finally resting upon the water, which 
presents that appearance of life so attractive to 
feeding fish, trout naturally ignoring a dead insect 
when their attention is attracted to a fluttering 
one. If trout never took the male insect, nothing 
would be gained by imitating it; but they do — 
though when they do, it is generally because 
there are no interfering females about; or, to 
be more gallant, when the more attractive sex 
is not strongly in evidence. It naturally sug- 
gests itself to the angler that when the females 
of any species are predominant upon the water, 
it is advantageous to present a close imitation 
of them in colour and size — the form of the 
sexes being similar. 

It seems to me that the colourist, as a rule, is 
much too certain that his flies appear to the 
trout as they do to his own sense of sight; 
surely, there is no way of demonstrating or es- 
tablishing what the truth may be. Certain it 
is that up to the present time, it has not been 
possible to fashion an artificial fly that would 
give even a faint semblance of the translucence 



152 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 

of the natural insect; and this, it seems to 
me, is a very important consideration. Using 
materials available, it is quite impossible to 
duplicate this delicate appearance of the live 
insect, and my own conclusion is that materials 
which will most nearly represent it by permit- 
ting a filtering of light are the ones to be em- 
ployed — preferably materials of quiet tone and 
colour. 

I am of the opinion, also, that the colour, or 
perhaps the transparency, of the wings of the 
artificial fly is quite as important as the colour 
of the body; and I am satisfied, so far as my 
own angling is concerned, that all erect-winged 
flies should be tied with wings made of feathers 
from the starling's wing, or flues from the in- 
side wing feather of the mallard or black 
duck. For, while trout may not be able to 
distinguish quite so readily the colour of the 
wings out of the water as the body of the fly 
on the water, the natural appearance of the 
wings may prevent them from scrutinising the 
body too closely, and thus discovering discrep- 
ancies in its colouring; and, while wings of 
light silvery grey may not appear so to the 
fish, to my eye they produce a close resem- 
blance to the transparent, gauzy wing common 



IMITATION OF THE NATURAL INSECT 153 

to all of the EphemeridcBy in both the dun and 
perfect states. 

I have a decided preference for winged flies, 
but that is because they look more like liv- 
ing insects to me when they are on the water 
than do hackled flies, and not because I think 
they appear more natural or lifelike to the fish. 
In practice I have found that hackled flies 
are taken quite as readily floating as ever they 
were when I fished them under water, and 
it may very well be that the hackle fibres 
standing out from and around the body on 
and above the surface of the water are even 
a better imitation of the wings of the Ephe- 
meridcB than are the feathers of the winged 
variety. Certainly a greater amount of light 
passes through them, and the result may be a 
better representation of the transparency and 
neuration of the wings of the natural insect than 
can be had from the use of artificial wings. At 
any rate, hackled flies float admirably, and the 
fish take them freely. And, although the dry 
fly anglers who use them may feel that some- 
thing of form and appearance has been sacrificed 
to utility, their aesthetic sense wiU probably 
survive the shock when they find themselves 
successful — even those who insist that their fly 



154 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 

be always beautifully cocked. If it is a consid- 
eration to be reckoned with, a hackled fly will 
outlast a dozen winged ones, being easily dried 
and humoured back into shape; while, on the 
other hand, a winged fly is almost hopelessly 
ruined when taken by a fish. In my own fish- 
ing I use a new fly over each fish — an extrava- 
gant habit, perhaps — but I love to see a natural 
looking artificial floating on the water. An old, 
mussed-up fly may continue to take fish as did 
the one fly we all have recollections of, that 
took fish until it was worn to a ravelling, and 
no other would do; nevertheless, the use of a 
fresh fly is good insurance against defeat, and, 
aside from its extravagance, the practice is rec- 
ommended. 

If the angler is to fish with a floating fly, the 
necessity of some imitation of colour and form 
is quite evident, but imitation need not be car- 
ried to the extent of copying minute variation 
of colour in slavish detail. To copy the form 
of the natural fly is, of course, practically im- 
possible. The quantity of hackle used on the 
artificial to represent the legs of the natural 
(which number six at most) could hardly be 
lessened, so great is its aid in floating the fly. 
Mr. Halford recommends tying the tail of the 



IMITATION OF THE NATURAL INSECT 155 

artificial in four whisks so as to increase its 
buoyancy, even though the setae of the natural 
number but two in most cases — never more than 
three. The use of these parts in slightly exagger- 
ated form does not denote a contempt for the 
keenness of the fish's vision on the part of the 
angler employing them. Rather, they are a 
necessary evil, and, after all, show a divergence 
in form in no way so marked as that occasioned 
by the hook. 

If approximately exact imitation of form of 
the dun or subimago of the Ephemeridce is at- 
tempted, the wings of the artificial should be 
tied so as to stand close together and directly 
upright over the body. But a deviation from 
this form to the extent of having the wings 
separated will enable the angler to present the 
fly cocked more frequently, to drop it lightly, 
and will work but little harm. 

In my own fishing I am willing to risk any 
defeat which a slight variance in colour may in- 
vite, if the fly will float erect and in the place I 
wish it to. While delicacy in handling the line 
will place the fly upright more often than not, 
"cocking" the fly is unfortunately not under di- 
rect control of the angler. *' Cocking" is a very 
important part of the imitation of the natural 



156 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 

insect — that imitation described as "position" 
— but it is not so essential as the accurate and 
dehcate placing of the fly, which last depends 
entirely upon the skill of the angler. Perhaps 
"position" is best described by saying that it 
includes both "attitude" and "plane." 

The plane in which the fly is to travel must 
be selected by the angler, and a combination of 
the judgment which prompts this selection, and 
the skill which maintains the plane during a 
great number of casts, will contribute more to 
success than the presentation of any particular 
pattern of fly. As a matter of fact, it is per- 
haps the only form of imitation which approxi- 
mates nature — a fly sitting upon the water, be- 
ing carried down-stream in the same current, 
and as unhampered and unrestrained in its 
action as a natural insect. Reliance upon cer- 
tain patterns purporting to represent certain 
insects is never so strong again with the angler 
who, by his own skill, produces an imitation in 
this way that deludes a good fish. The govern- 
ing consideration in the practice of this theory 
of imitation is the selection of the proper current 
in which to place the fly, and the angler, 
being guided naturally by his knowledge of 
the habits of the fish, should make a close 



IMITATION OF THE NATURAL INSECT 157 

study of the trend of the stream currents— 
particularly of those upon its surface — before 
beginning operations. Whether or not the fly 
is to be placed an inch from the bank, or a foot 
or two away, should depend entirely upon this 
observation, plane being always the important 
consideration. 

The surface currents carry down numbers 
of insects, both dead and alive, and the edge 
of that one which is carrying most drift and 
is travelling slowest should be chosen by the 
angler for the delivery of the artificial — al- 
ways with regard to the avoidance of drag. 
If there are no insects about or upon the sur- 
face of the water, small drift stuffs, leaves, 
twigs, and the like will be carried down in 
the same plane, and under this surface drift 
the fish will probably be lying. He is inter- 
ested in things upon the surface, and it is the 
angler's business to know it, and to so present 
the fly that it will come down as naturally as 
an unhampered insect. 

It seems hardly necessary to state that it 
will be found well-nigh if not quite impossible to 
imitate the fluttering of a fly over or upon the 
water, by means of the rod. Yet many of us, 
when wet fly fishing, have deluded ourselves 



IS8 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 

into the belief that, by the use of a dropper-fly 
and its careful manipulation, we were simulat- 
ing, to a certain degree, the fluttering of the 
natural insect. At any rate, when the fly was 
taken we flattered ourselves that this was the 
case. Yet frequently, with the angler's atten- 
tion centred upon giving to the dropper-fly a 
proper motion, the submerged tail-fly was taken, 
and usually by the larger fish. Instead of weak- 
ening one's faith in the dropper-fly and the 
efficacy of its jerky motion, experiences such as 
these have been known to strengthen a belief in 
the method; and I have heard the idea expressed 
that the action of the dropper-fly on the surface 
had attracted the attention of the fish to the 
tail-fly. This may be true, but, as a matter of 
fact, the sunk fly was the better imitation of 
life, which perhaps accounts for the fish's pref- 
erence for it. 

Those who practised fly fishing in the man- 
ner described paid little regard to imitation of 
colour, and perhaps less to imitation of form; a 
comparison of the ordinary tackle-shop wet fly 
with the natural insect will convince any doubt- 
ing angler that this is so. When they did at- 
tempt to imitate the colour of the natural fly, 
they were accustomed to give little or no thought 



IMITATION OF THE NATURAL INSECT 159 

to colour changes likely to take place upon im- 
mersion, with the result that in many cases 
where silk was used upon the body of the fly, 
these changes were great enough to destroy 
almost at once any resemblance to nature the 
artificial might have had before it was wet. 
I sometimes find myself believing that these 
anglers, when they considered colour at all, 
considered it only in relation to its effect upon 
their own eyes, and without any regard to the 
fish's view of it — perhaps not entirely without 
reason. True, the changes in, or loss of, colour 
were offset to a considerable extent by the 
motion, more or less rapid, imparted to the fly, 
which prevented close scrutiny by the trout, 
and detection of the fraud. My own notion 
is that as the fly had to be taken quickly by 
the fish, if at all, it was taken because it was 
moving and might be food of some sort and not 
because it looked like or was an imitation of any 
particular insect. 

There are a great many expert anglers in 
America who fish with accurate or close imi- 
tations of the natural insect, wet or sunk, and 
who, by virtue of their skill in throwing the fly 
and their knowledge of the haunts and habits 
of the trout, are enabled to basket fish of fine 



i6o THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 

quality and size — fish that would be creditable 
to the angler's skill under almost any circum- 
stance of capture. I hazard the opinion, how- 
ever, that they derive less real sport from their 
method than does the angler who fishes with a 
single dry and floating fly, imparts no motion 
to it, and presents an imitation of a natural 
insect which the trout is at liberty to inspect 
and, if his suspicion is aroused by the transpar- 
ency of the fraud or because of some mistake in 
delivery, to reject. The dry fly angler must 
know quite as much of the haunts and habits 
of the fish as the wet fly angler and, to cast his 
fly successfully, must have the greater skill. 
Above all, the dry fly method is the more fas- 
cinating, because the angler actually sees the 
rise and the taking of the fly, the sense of sight 
as well as the sense of touch conducing to his 
pleasurable emotion. His imagination — and all 
ardent anglers have imagination — will immedi- 
ately come into play, and he will find himself 
convinced that the imitation has really deceived 
the fish into believing that a living insect lay 
upon the water. 

I venture to suggest the fancy that the taking 
of a trout with a nondescript fly of blue or red 
— the Parmacheene Belle, the Jenny Lind, or 



IMITATION OF THE NATURAL INSECT i6i 

what-not — even though it may have been pre- 
sented accurately, superbly cocked and lightly 
floating, can never produce in the angler's mind 
the feeling of satisfaction that attends him when 
he captures a fine fish with a fair imitation 
of the natural fly upon the water at the time, 
or with one which may be assumed to represent 
in colour and form a natural fly of a species 
which might be expected to be about at the 
season. True, I may seem to be stretching the 
point too finely, but I have expressed the fancy 
to some of my friends, who, after hearing me, 
were good enough to say, as indeed I hoped they 
would, "Why, the trout that took the gaudy 
fly was a fool fish that would have taken any- 
thing." They seemed to believe, as I do, that 
the angler who captures a "fool'* fish attains 
to no honour; that "fool" fish are not the sort 
of fish one should covet. The fancy may be 
strongly characterised by many as eccentric, I 
know, but I am sure that it embodies the prin- 
ciple and spirit of true sportsmanship. 

The theory of imitation may not be justly 
attacked or lightly set aside because of the fact 
that nondescript flies frequently take fish, — 
sometimes after fair imitations have been re- 
fused. My own belief is that when the highly 



1 62 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 

coloured nondescript is taken, success should be 
ascribed to the great skill of the angler and his 
particularly clean presentation of the fly, or to 
the fact that the fly was "popped" over and so 
close to a fish that it was seized because of its 
proximity. 

The taking of trout with either of those two 
famous flies, the Gold-Ribbed Hare's Ear or 
the Wickham's Fancy, after fish have refused 
close imitations of the insects upon which 
they were feeding, might also be urged as an 
argument against the imitation theory, though 
against the colour part of it only, as those two 
patterns, while imitations, perhaps, of no indi- 
vidual insects, do bear a general resemblance to 
many, and may be said to be typical in form. 
It is quite possible that the bright tinsel body 
of the Wickham's Fancy, and the rib of gold 
wire or tinsel of the Hare's Ear, represent to the 
trout that beautiful, iridescent colouring plainly 
visible upon the body of many natural insects. 
It is also quite possible that the flashing of 
the tinsel, opaque though it is, produces that 
quality of translucence so apparent in the nat- 
ural insect. 

The theory that a counterpart in colour and 
form of the natural food of the trout is more 



IMITATION OF THE NATURAL INSECT 163 

likely to prove effective than a nondescript, is 
logical, beyond question, not only because the 
imitation is likely to delude the fish, but also 
because of the appeal it makes to the angler's 
own sense of fitness; for it is more than likely 
that the angler, knowing his imitation to be a 
correct one, will feel a confidence that will en- 
able him to make a cleaner presentation of it, 
and to simulate more closely the great essentials 
— action and position. And yet within the ex- 
perience of every angler there have been times 
when the very closest imitation of the insect 
upon which the trout were presumably feeding, 
presented in the best possible manner, has 
failed to excite any interest on the part of the 
fish, and when an artificial in no way resem- 
bling the natural in colour took trout quite as 
well as the closest imitation. On such occasions 
the faith of the advocate of close imitation 
probably received a rude shock. 

Although considered out of fashion among 
fly fishermen of the present day, one occasion- 
ally meets an angler who still adheres to what 
is known as the "routine" system. The advo- 
cates of this system believe in the necessity of 
presenting to the fish a certain series of artificial 
flies in February, another series in March, and 



i64 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 

continuing a different series for each month of 
the season. The theory is based, of course, 
upon the imitation of those insects which pre- 
vail in the particular months. "Routine'* an- 
glers of the past probably had opinions as 
firmly fixed as those of anglers of to-day, and 
it is very likely that there were a few who per- 
sistently clung to the prescribed flies for May, 
when fishing that month, and used no others — 
fish or no fish. 

Whatever effect the colour of the artificial fly 
may have upon trout, and however necessary 
the proper shade may be felt to be when cast- 
ing to fish that are feeding upon some particular 
species of insect, it is quite certain that the 
angler cannot rely upon this form of imitation 
alone to take fish. In fishing with the floating 
fly the imitation of the form of the natural in- 
sect, in my opinion, is quite as essential as that 
of its colour, and frequently size will be found 
to be even more important than either. My 
own experiences have convinced me that imita- 
tion of the natural insect is absolutely neces- 
sary, and I put the forms this should take 
in the following order — the order of their im- 
portance: 

1st — Position of the fly upon the water. 



IMITATION OF THE NATURAL INSECT 165 

2nd — Its action. 

3rd — Size of the fly. 

4th — Form of the fly. 

Sth — Colour of the fly. 

The degrees of importance which separate 
form, size, and colour may not be widely marked, 
and, while an exact imitation of the colour, size, 
and form of the insect which the trout are tak- 
ing is undoubtedly the ideal combination, I 
believe that if failure results from any variation 
from this combination, colour is least respon- 
sible for it. I cannot go so far as to say that 
trout are entirely colour-blind, or that a cor- 
rectly sized and shaped artificial dressed in blue 
would kill a fish that was taking a natural yel- 
low dun, but I do believe that even a great di- 
vergence in the shade of colour of the artificial 
tied in imitation of the natural insect would 
make no material difference to the fish, if it were 
properly presented. In fact, it is my opinion 
that the artificial need not be yellow at all; 
that a fly of subdued colour — a Whirling Dun, a 
Silver Sedge, a Pink Lady, or any fly of similar 
conformation — will be accepted by the fish feed- 
ing upon a little yellow may if its presentation 
is clean. 

We have all had experience with certain fish. 



i66 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 

or, perhaps, with many fish, on certain days 
when, although they appeared to be feeding, it 
seemed next to impossible to induce a rise. 
Such failures are invariably ascribed to lack of 
proper imitation — usually, colour. Sometimes 
the angler, if he be an expert fly-tier, sets about 
fashioning a fly which resembles the insect some 
particular fish is taking, and, presenting it either 
at that time or the next day, is delighted to find 
it taken readily. He is immediately a strong 
advocate of the theory of colour imitation, but 
he is sometimes uncertain that another pattern 
would not have served quite as well. Whether 
or not the pattern did the killing is really an 
open question. 

Just above the dam in front of the Spruce 
Cabin Inn, at Canadensis, on the Brodhead, is a 
beautiful stretch of flat water where a great many 
fine fish may always be found. However, they 
are not always to be taken. Along the bank 
opposite the road, which at this point is but a 
few feet from the stream, is a heavy growth of 
wood. The rhododendron, which is quite thick, 
throws its roots out from the bank under water, 
and the interstices between these roots afford 
fine hiding-places for the fish. At the upper end 
of the wood, just where a field joins it, there is a 



IMITATION OF THE NATURAL INSECT 167 

deep hole which is the home of a very large 
trout— a fish that has sorely tried the patience 
of the few anglers who have attempted to take 
him. An overhanging tree prevents the deliv- 
ery of a really effective cast from below, and 
this undoubtedly accounts for a great many 
failures. In three successive years I have raised 
this fish seven times (a very small proportion of 
the times I have tried for him), on four occasions 
leaving my fly with him, and not fastening 
solidly on the others. An old tree-stump to 
which the fish rushes immediately upon being 
hooked accounts for the smashes. The fish will 
not rise to a fly on coarse gut, and the fine gut 
will not hold him from the stump. If there ever 
was a trout that could convince the angler that 
exact — and even minute — imitation was abso- 
lutely essential, this is the one. He feeds reg- 
ularly, and may be seen rising steadily for hours 
at a time. No amount of casting will put him 
down, unless clumsily done, and he will rise 
to a natural insect within a few inches of the 
artificial, time and again, ignoring the latter 
totally. On one occasion — the last time I tried 
for him — I failed so signally with all my favour- 
ite patterns, that I might have been convinced 
that exact imitation was necessary had it not 



l68 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 

been for the fact that the fish rose indiscrimi- 
nately to many different sorts — spinners, gnats, 
and the smaller members of the beetle family, 
lady-bugs, and the like, and finally to an artificial 
which bore no resemblance to any of these. I 
could not imitate them all, and had tried faith- 
fully with a fair imitation, in size and colour, of 
one species. It was all to no purpose, however, 
and to see him continually rising after the many 
attempts I had made was, to say the least, 
chastening. I finally decided, after watching 
him feed for ten minutes, to make one more 
attempt, and to keep casting the one pattern 
until he took it or was put down. I knotted on 
a fly known as the "Mole," which looks like an 
insect on the water at a distance, but very unlike 
one when examined closely. This fly was offered 
probably twenty times or more, without effect, 
the fish continuing to rise to the natural insects 
all about it. The cast which eventually raised 
him differed from any that I had previously 
made, though without intent on my part. When 
the fly alighted about a foot above the fish, it 
fell upon its side with one wing on the surface 
and the other in the air. Drifting down to with- 
in a few inches of the fish, it suddenly stood 
erect and cocked, this apparently the result of 



IMITATION OF THE NATURAL INSECT 169 

some pressure brought to bear upon the leader 
by the slow current. It had hardly assumed 
this upright position, and perhaps was still in 
the act of regaining its equilibrium, when it dis- 
appeared and I was fast to the fish. He added 
this fly to his collection, and while I sadly 
examined the leader to ascertain the extent 
of the damage done, I was not wholly discon- 
tented. 

I threw a Whirling Dun to this fish one day 
over a hundred times without putting him down 
or having him evince the slightest interest in 
it. A few minutes later, going up-stream from 
him, I detached the fly from the leader, and, 
breaking the hook off at the bend, floated it 
down, and it was taken readily. Perhaps on 
this occasion I missed the psychological mo- 
ment, and it is quite possible that the fly would 
have been taken if I had made one more cast, 
though not very probable. My own notion of it 
is that the pattern, when floated down with the 
hook broken off, had a certain naturalness which 
was lacking when it was attached to the leader. 
Either the leader itself was seen, or its restraint 
upon the fly destroyed its natural appearance. 
On the other hand, however, the difficulty in 
presenting the fly because of the overhanging 



I/O THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 

tree may have prevented a proper presentation, 
though I think a great number of times it ap- 
proached the fish admirably. Whatever the 
reason may have been, I did not raise him that 
day. 

Perhaps the actions of another fish that I 
watched feeding steadily for over an hour may, 
while hardly offering a solution of the difficulty, 
present some basis for conjecture. A gentleman 
who had observed him feeding the day before 
called my attention to the fact that a good trout 
occupied a little pocket about one hundred 
yards above the big fish which has given me so 
much sport, and he led me mysteriously away 
from the inn, and as mysteriously up the road, 
until we reached the spot where the fish was, 
when he asked me to look in the little eddy and 
tell him what I saw. For a moment or two I 
could see nothing but a little drift stuff, but 
very shortly a good-sized snout broke the sur- 
face, and a large bubble floated where it had ap- 
peared. While we spent ten or fifteen minutes 
watching the fish rise, I laid plans to get him 
the next day. In the morning I thought better 
of it, however, and planned to crawl down to 
the water's edge and study his actions at close 
range. In clambering down the steep bank I 



IMITATION OF THE NATURAL INSECT 171 

was rather clumsy, and he took fright and disap- 
peared. Getting as close as I could to the water, 
I hid behind a bush and watched for the fish to 
return, which he did in just four minutes, timed 
by my watch. This in itself was interesting, as 
it tended to show how long the incident lingered 
in his memory. The eddy which he occupied 
was formed at the bottom of a rather swift little 
run by a large boulder that deflected a part of 
the stream toward the bank and started it up- 
stream again. The fish stationed himself ex- 
actly in the centre of this up-stream current, 
which was not very strong, and immediately 
began feeding. He rose three or four times a 
minute, sometimes oftener, according to the op- 
portunities presented. There were very few 
insects in the air, but apparently a great many 
upon the surface of the water. I think perhaps 
a half dozen or so of diff^erent sorts alighted di- 
rectly in the eddy, all of which the fish accounted 
for, but the majority of rises were to insects 
that were carried down-stream upon the surface, 
and collected in the eddy. They were of all 
sizes and shapes, from the tiniest Diptera, which 
interested him much, to a small, dead butterfly, 
lying flat, which he examined closely, but de- 
clined. It was this discrimination that puzzled 



172 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 

me. He took many apparently dead insects, 
and refused many. He never refused any that 
were alive, and size or colour or shape made no 
difference to him. Why some dead insects ap- 
pealed to him and others did not, I cannot guess, 
unless, perhaps, those that appeared dead to me 
did not look so to him. Every time he rose, it 
was with the greatest deliberation; never did he 
rush at the fly, and once when a particularly 
active dun fluttered on the surface close to him, 
instead of rushing for it as I expected him to do, 
he merely backed up under it, rising very slowly, 
finally sucking it in. Another thing I noticed 
was that he never went forward to take an in- 
sect. He went forward frequently to meet one, 
but always took it backing up. This manner of 
taking a fly is not at all unusual, as fish may fre- 
quently be seen backing under an artificial, 
sometimes even turning down-stream before tak- 
ing it. If an insect showed the slightest activity, 
which many of them did in various ways, moving 
the body up and down, opening and closing 
their wings, or moving their legs, he never 
hesitated, but took it at once, even the tiniest. 
If the insect lay upon its side, he would drift 
with it a foot or two, sometimes taking it, fre- 
quently leaving it. On one occasion he backed 



IMITATION OF THE NATURAL INSECT 173 

under an insect in this position for a distance of 
about three feet, and stopped, apparently aban- 
doning it; but the next instant he turned, took 
it quietly, and swam slowly back to his station. 
I was unable to see this insect as clearly as I 
wished, and I do not know that it moved at the 
moment it was taken, but from the manner in 
which the fish took the others, it seems likely 
that this was the case. Notwithstanding the 
decided preference shown by this fish for the 
moving or living insects, he rose and took a 
piece of a twig about three eighths of an inch 
long which I flipped to him at a moment when 
he was unoccupied, and I found this twig in his 
stomach the next day, together with three spruce 
needles, two of which were green and one yel- 
low. Would the presence of this drift stuff in 
his stomach indicate that the fish was near- 
sighted, or that such drift really had a place in 
his dietary? 

I have found in the stomachs of trout many 
small sticks, plainly fresh, and which certainly 
formed no part of a caddis casing. Why they 
were taken is hard to say; some anglers have 
expressed the opinion, which may possibly be 
sound, that the fish are compelled to take them 
in the attempt to secure some poor shipwrecked 
insects which are using them as rafts. I prefer 



174 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 

to believe, however, that they are mistaken by 
the fish for some form of Ufe, perhaps having 
the appearance of caddis larvae. The spruce 
needles were probably mistaken for willow flies, 
or some of the family of Perlidce — those with 
wings that fold along the back. 

That the fish was taken the following morn- 
ing on the Mole, which certainly imitated no 
insect with which he may have been familiar, 
perhaps means nothing. As he was feeding 
regularly, and rather indiscriminately, he was 
probably an easy fish to take. The Mole was 
just another morsel that looked natural enough. 
The first cast took him, the fly drifting up to 
him after having been cast over the boulder at 
the bottom of the eddy. The leader was not 
seen, and as the fly appeared in a natural, up- 
right position, his suspicion was not aroused, 
and a minute or two later he was in the net. 
Withal, the fish showed a decided preference for 
living insects, and refused those which were cer- 
tainly no deader than an artificial fly; and yet 
the Mole was taken with just as much confi- 
dence as if it had been a living thing. I think 
it quite within reason that any pattern of fly 
properly presented would have taken the fish 
as readily as did the fly which he rose to, and 
my conclusion is that it was because of its 



IMITATION OF THE NATURAL INSECT 175 

position that it was taken. My observation of 
this fish confirmed my belief in the necessity of 
so placing the fly that it would come to the fish 
just as a natural insect would, floating upon the 
surface. There is a great difference between the 
effect produced by a fly cast upon likely looking 
water, or to a feeding fish, without special care 
as to where it may alight, and that produced 
by one cast exactly to the proper spot. 

The larger fish down-stream apparently was 
interested only in live insects, which is shown, 
I think, by his utter refusal of every artificial 
of any pattern, including the Mole, which he 
ignored each time it came over him, until the 
twist in the leader, or some other uncontrolled 
action, turned the fly over on the surface, and 
simulated to a certain extent the struggle of an 
insect endeavouring to rise from the water. I 
am convinced that my many failures with this 
fish were due, in the main, to my inability to 
place the fly in a proper position. This con- 
clusion is supported, I think, by the fact that 
he took the unattached Whirling Dun — which 
I was careful to float down to him in the proper 
current — after he had refused it scores of times 
when attached to the leader. 



CHAPTER VI 

SOME FANCIES— SOME FACTS 

Some anglers have come to believe that the 
trout of our heavily fished streams have devel- 
oped such wariness and cunning that they view 
the artificial fly of the angler with suspicion, 
even if they do not actually know it to be an 
imitation. In the light of certain experiences 
of my own, I am unable to concur in the con- 
clusion reached by these anglers that trout are 
capable of reasoning or remembering specific in- 
cidents for any long period of time; it is my 
opinion — presented, however, with some hesi- 
tancy — that they refuse the artificial fly not 
because they have had previous experience 
with it but because of various other reasons, 
the most important of which are the unnatural 
action of the fly and the probability of the fish 
having seen the angler, his rod, the leader, or 
the shadow of one or all. Surely the trout of 
these streams cannot in July and August re- 
member the hordes of anglers that invaded their 

haunts in May. Admitting it to be true that in 

176 



SOME FANCIES— SOME FACTS 177 

the earlier months of the season it is compara- 
tively easy to take trout, even when the streams 
are full of anglers, and that later, in the summer 
months, with but two or three anglers, or at most 
a half dozen, to be seen, infinite skill is often 
required to induce even a single fair rise, some- 
thing other than the memory of the fish must 
be the cause of his reluctance to rise, as the 
following instances may tend to prove. 

In July, 191 1, I rose, hooked, and returned 
to the water four fish three times each in one 
week; and these fish were taken in the same 
place and on the same pattern of fly each time. 
On another occasion I rose and landed an 
eleven-inch rainbow trout which I returned to 
the water, and the next day this fish was brought 
home by a fellow angler who had taken him in 
the same place. This last may possibly have 
been another fish; but about .the four other 
trout there can be no mistake, as I marked them 
without injury before returning them to the 
water the first time. I was prompted to make 
this experiment after taking a fish from one 
spot, which resembled closely in size and form 
a fish I had returned to the water a few days 
previously. This fish was one of the four, and 
was twice taken and returned. Each of the fish 



178 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 

gave up a minute piece of its caudal fin in re- 
turn for its life. 

Often, too, one hears of trout being taken 
with the fly of some luckless or careless angler 
fast in its jaw. On the Brodhead, in 1907, one 
morning about eight o'clock, I rose and killed a 
native trout weighing about a pound, which had 
a fly in its lip left there by an angler the eve- 
ning before; his nose was raw and bleeding where 
he had scraped it against the stones in his 
efforts to dislodge the hook. Experiences of 
this sort do not tend to confirm the belief that 
fish have memory. 

The more enemies an animal has the more 
wary it is, and in those least able to defend them- 
selves against attack the senses which enable 
them to avoid danger are most keen. In some 
animals, sight, smell, and hearing are all keenly 
alert; in others a combination of two of these 
senses is relied upon, and in rare cases but one. 
These faculties give warning of the approach of 
an enemy, and time, in most cases, for the use of 
such secondary means of defence as are provided 
by nature — speed, flight, protective colouring, 
or whatever they may be. 

In the case of trout, since scientists have 
come to no definite conclusion that fish can 



SOME FANCIES-SOME FACTS 179 

smell, we may safely assume — from the fly 
fisher's standpoint, at any rate — that this sense 
has no place in our study. The same may be 
said of taste and feeling; the luckless fish rely- 
ing upon these senses would find himself hard 
and fast before he could reach the conclusion 
that the feathered fly was not what it appeared 
to be. This leaves sight and hearing as the 
means by which the trout is apprised of the ap- 
proach of danger — and the angler may well say 
that they are quite suflScient. 

"If fish could hear as well as see. 
Never a fisher would there be." 

The experiments made by Ronalds and de- 
scribed in his "Fly Fishers* Entomology" prove 
more or less conclusively that trout cannot hear, 
or at least are not disturbed by sounds pro- 
duced in the air. Now, while it is quite cer- 
tain that they are affected by vibrations com- 
municated to the water, the bottom of the 
stream, or its banks, I do not believe that the 
disturbance is conveyed to the senses of the fish 
unless the vibrations take place close to it. In 
this connection, an experiment made by myself 
may prove interesting, even though it may be 
in no way conclusive, as it was tried but once. 



i8o THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 

and the trout which served as the medium may 
have been "deaf." Taking my position on a high 
bank above the fish and completely out of sight, I 
had a young man go below and thirty feet down- 
stream. Lying prone upon the opposite shore, 
which was level with the water, and taking 
pains not to make any quick move which might 
have spoiled the experiment, he took two stones, 
one in each hand, and, at a signal from me, 
struck them together, a foot under water. He 
did this a dozen times, each succeeding blow 
being harder than the previous one. The sound 
produced by the clashing stones had no ap- 
parent effect upon the fish, but I noticed that 
the series of small waves or ripples created by 
the disturbance of the surface, upon reaching the 
trout, seemed to make it uneasy, and it began 
"weaving" from side to side, covering, however, 
not more than a foot in its movements. When 
the fish had quieted down, and after another 
trial, with the same effect, I had the lad abandon 
the stones and make as large a wave as he could, 
directed toward the fish. There was consider- 
able splashing during the attempt, but the trout 
gave no indication that it was aware of the dis- 
turbance until the first ripple was passing over 
it, when it became as uneasy as before, and 



SOME FANCIES— SOME FACTS i8i 

even more excited; and not until the ripple 
had ceased did it resume the almost stationary 
position previously held. The fish was about 
one foot from the surface, and the largest ripple 
not over two inches in height; consequently, its 
motion could hardly have been felt at a depth 
greater than six inches; yet the fish was dis- 
turbed — whether by the action of the water it- 
self or by the shadow cast by the ripple, I leave 
for the reader to decide. Of one thing I am 
positive: the fish was not disturbed by the 
sound of the colliding stones. 

The fish's sense of sight is so keen that it 
alone enables the trout to avoid danger, and is 
absolutely necessary to its existence. But it is 
not so keen, in my opinion, as to enable the 
trout to detect minute differences between the 
angler's fly and the natural insect — except, of 
course, when the action of the artificial fly is so 
unnatural as to warn the fish, or frighten it. 

Adherents to the theory that trout are able 
to distinguish between the angler's artificial 
fly and the natural insect, make much of the 
admitted fact that a fish is rarely taken from 
the much fished Southern streams on a Par- 
macheene Belle or other nondescript. There 
is a great deal of truth in the contention; but 



1 82 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 

the fact is lost sight of that these flies are usu- 
ally presented by anglers who have but little 
knowledge of the habits of the fish they are seek- 
ing, their experience having been gained solely 
at the expense of the trout of the wilderness. 

While not asserting the opinion that a gaudy 
fly will not take fish, I would remind the reader 
that such a fly is usually cast by a man who 
presents himself to the fish before he offers the 
fly — with the inevitable result. The instinct of 
self-preservation is strong in the trout, and he 
flees the apparition, though, if he would but 
realise it, he was never safer than at the very 
moment of its appearance. 

Anything unusual that comes within the 
vision of the fish means to him a possible 
danger, and the desire to feed, if he be in the 
mood, is forgotten in his effort to locate the 
point of attack. Any shadow thrown upon the 
water indicates the approach of an enemy — 
a heron, a kingfisher, a mink (the most destruc- 
tive of all), or a man, in whom he recognises an 
enemy only because he sees a moving object. 
Beset as the trout is at all times, it is but natural 
that he should make use of his only means of 
defence — speed — and escape while he may. On 
streams that are much fished, frequent sight 



SOME FANCIES— SOME FACTS 183 

of man is afforded the fish, and, although the 
actions of the angler (except in rare cases) do 
not indicate the danger of actual personal en- 
counter, the fish retires, precipitately or quietly, 
according to the manner in which he is ap- 
proached. It is this sight of man or his shadow, 
and not the the ability to detect the fraud, that 
impels him to refrain from taking the fly. If 
the angler remain hidden from view, and throw 
the fly properly, without the accompaniment of 
shadows of himself, rod, line, or leader, and a 
rise is not induced, he may safely assume that 
it is lack of inclination on the part of the fish, 
and not a contempt for the pattern of the fly, 
bred of familiarity with it, that causes him to 
refuse it. 

These facts, or fancies, as they may be con- 
sidered, are presented only as they may sup- 
port a theory that accounts for the wariness and 
cunning of the trout of much fished streams, 
and the apparent lack of these attributes in the 
trout of the wilderness. It is a well known fact 
that a man who wishes to take trout in Maine, 
Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, or, in fact, 
anywhere in the north woods where they are 
plentiful, need have had no previous experience 
to enable him to catch all that the law, or his 



1 84 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 

conscience, permits. This same man fishing in 
Pennsylvania or lower New York, practising 
the same methods he applied in the North, will 
leave the streams with the idea firmly fixed in 
his mind that they are barren of fish, or, per- 
chance, viewing the catch made by a more 
skilful angler, will come to the conclusion that 
the fish are more wary than their fellows of the 
North, and that a skill unknown to the angler 
lacking experience on these waters is required 
to take them. The instinct of self-preservation 
is quite as strong in the trout of the wilderness, 
but expresses itself in other ways that are in 
keeping with the different conditions they have 
to contend with. 

In most places where trout are plentiful, 
there is abundance of room for them to 
escape from an enemy, an advantage denied 
the trout which are restricted to the narrow 
confines of one of our mountain streams, par- 
ticularly when the water is low and the trout 
have to be more wary than ever, if they are to 
survive. While endowed with the same agility 
and the same keenness of sight, the wilderness 
fish are emboldened by numbers, and appear to 
depend a great deal upon one another for warn- 
ing; they are alert only to the "main chance"; 



SOME FANCIES— SOME FACTS 185 

i. e., the taking of anything that looks Hke food. 
This explains why it is easy for the veriest tyro 
fishing in the wilderness to take as many fish 
with the fly in a single day as the expert on 
the Southern streams would be content to take 
in a season. Many of these big catches are made 
upon lakes and streams that are heavily fished; 
* yet the angler rarely has to resort to methods 
which require any great skill. In many instances 
the fishing is done from a canoe, and fish are 
taken quite close to it, the interest on the part 
of the trout seemingly being actuated by nothing 
more than a desire to "beat his fellows to it." 

The law of "the survival of the fittest" ap- 
plies equally to the fish of the Southern streams 
and to the fish of the wilderness. In both cases 
vigilance and agility are the price of continued 
existence — on the one hand, to avoid the attack 
which may deprive the fish of life, on the other, 
to excel in the scramble for that which will sus- 
tain it. 

If the old saw which runs, "When the wind 
is in the north the skilful fisherman goes not 
forth," etc., referred to fly fishing, it was plainly 
meant for the angler who did not care to in- 
dulge in his sport when the chilling blasts from 
this quarter were howling about the stream. 



1 86 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 

because it is in no sense descriptive of the effect 
of the wind upon the feeding of the fish. When 
an angler has taken trout under conditions 
ranging from flat calms to gales from every 
point of the compass, it is difficult for him to 
believe that wind has any direct effect upon the 
fish, aside, perhaps, from the influence it exerts 
in promoting or retarding the development of 
the insects upon which they feed; and this last 
depends more upon the temperature of the wind 
than it does upon its force or the quarter from 
which it comes. 

The angler who is fishing the flat, still water 
of a pond or lake hopes for a breeze in order 
that he may take advantage of the ripple caused 
by it, and deceive or approach his fish more 
readily. The advantage afforded by the breeze 
is offset on many occasions, in proportion to the 
force of the wind, by the increased difficulty of 
casting; and when a stiff wind islblowing down- 
stream or in the face of the angler it is of negli- 
gible value. So far as comfort is concerned, a 
chilling wind is very disagreeable, and the an- 
gler unfortunate enough to be upon the stream 
during a "norther" in the early spring is quite 
of the mind that trout are sensible of it, when 
he finds them in no keener mood for the sport 



SOME FANCIES-SOME FACTS 187 

than he is; yet it was just such a day, as cold 
and blustering as I have ever experienced, that 
the trout on the Brodhead, of which I have told, 
rose to the fly which was made to play such 
pranks by the wind. 

There is a gentleman of my acquaintance, an 
expert with the fly, who holds that it is useless 
to fish a wooded stream when the wind is blow- 
ing heavily, not so much because of any change 
in atmospheric conditions, but because the rap- 
idly moving shadows thrown upon the water 
by the frantically waving overhead limbs and 
branches seem to make the trout restless or 
nervous, and unwilling to feed. Be this as it 
may, it certainly does not apply upon the open 
stretches, for there the wind is of distinct ad- 
vantage, because the ruffled surface helps to 
conceal the angler's activities from the fish. 
When success does not attend the caster's 
efl^orts on days of this sort, failure must be 
ascribed to his state of mind rather than to the 
condition of the weather. 

And here just a hint from my own experi- 
ence: beware of fishing in big woods on a very 
windy day; dead limbs may come crashing down 
at any moment. On one occasion a difference of 
ten feet in my position would have meant dis- 



i88 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 

aster and these pages might never have been 
written. 

During periods of high wind the trout are 
often treated to a change of diet, land flies, 
grasshoppers, and beetles, unhappily overcome, 
being readily and cheerfully accepted. On one 
occasion, all the trout killed by five or six anglers 
disclosed the fact, upon autopsy, that potato- 
bugs had formed a large part of their food that 
morning; and a fly which resembled this beetle 
only in size and shape was found very effective. 
This fly was a herl-bodied brown palmer, called 
the Marlow Buzz. 

The many anglers who still hold to the belief 
that trout will not rise during a thunder-storm 
do so, no doubt, because it offers an excuse for 
retiring from the stream and seeking shelter, — 
for which they cannot be blamed. It is not 
the pleasantest situation to be caught in one of 
the vicious storms which sometimes break with 
scant warning. If, however, it happens that 
the angler is so placed that he is far from a 
road or path that will lead him to some cover, 
he is far safer in the streams than in the woods; 
and, making the best of a bad bargain, he should 
continue his fishing. In all likelihood, he will 
come to the conclusion that the theory is not 



SOME FANCIES— SOME FACTS 189 

founded upon fact; for, while trout do not in- 
variably rise during thunder-storms, they may 
be taken on occasions when the reverberations 
are so heavy as to be felt almost as distinctly as 
they are heard — the effect upon the fish not 
being apparent. 

If the storm be accompanied by a heavy rain, 
dry fly fishing ceases as soon as the water begins 
to rise and becomes discoloured, because, even 
though the fish may be ready to feed, there is 
small likelihood of the angler's fly being seen 
by them through the discoloured water. But 
no time should be wasted in returning to the 
stream after the flood has run off and the water 
is clearing, as the opportunity for taking fish 
is then probably the best that will be presented. 

Idiosyncrasy — or shall we call it superstition? 
— seems to enter into the make-up of a great 
many anglers. 

Squire Jake Price, now dead, father of the 
boys who keep that comfortable hostelry on the 
Brodhead, at Canadensis, in Pennsylvania, well 
known to many anglers, was famous as a trout 
fisherman. He fished with the fly only, tied his 
own flies, and from the time his sons were able 
to wade the streams would permit them to use 
nothing else. Always keen to be at his fishing, 



190 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 

he would not be dragged to the waterside unless 
his "almanac'' told him the time was propitious. 
Curiously enough, when he did go, he always 
took fish; but this may be ascribed to the fact 
that he "knew how" rather than to a revelation 
from the zodiac. 

A story is told of an angler of indifferent skill, 
but anxious to take home a basket of fish, who 
induced Squire Jake to accompany him one 
morning. He felt certain of getting trout, the 
Squire having approved of the day. Upon 
their arrival at the stream-side he proceeded to 
line his creel with fine grasses and ferns, when, 
to his amazement, the Squire left abruptly, 
saying he could not fish with one who would 
thus "fly in the face of Providence." Was this 
superstition, or only anger at the other's as- 
surance ? 

Of similar mind to the Squire are those an- 
glers who persist in carrying, to their own in- 
convenience, a diminutive creel and smaller net, 
preferring to cram into either a fish twice too 
large rather than to carry equipment of adequate 
size; the taking of a good fish is a circumstance 
which they feel may never be realised if they 
anticipate it. 

Some consideration must be given to the be- 



SOME FANCIES-SOME FACTS 191 

lief of those who have unbounded faith in a 
particular pattern of fly. There are wet fly 
fishermen on the Beaverkill who never make up 
their cast of three flies without including the 
Royal Coachman; and at least one of these, 
whom I know, uses this fly, dry, in preference 
to any other. While the pattern has no place 
in my book, I respect the faith others have 
in it, which faith, however, is often rudely 
shaken — for a short period, at least. After 
fishing carefully for hours with his favourite fly 
without response, the angler meets a brother 
angler who displays two or three nice fish taken 
on the Queen, the Bumble, or what not, and 
passes on. For the nonce the favourite is dis- 
carded, the Queen or Bumble is knotted on, but 
the result is the same — nothing. Another pat- 
tern is tried — same result. Again the fly is 
changed, and again, and still again. In his 
anxiety our friend uses little skill, less judgment, 
and lacks entirely the great essential — faith. 

Many times an angler, stepping quietly into 
the stream at the beginning of his day's sport, 
casts his fly to a spot where his experience tells 
him a trout may be, and meets with response 
almost immediately. His next cast is accepted 
quite as quickly, and in these few delicious mo- 



192 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 

ments, with the nucleus in his creel, the vision 
he has had of the one great day's catch begins 
to take tangible form. But how rudely the vi- 
sion is dissipated in the next four or five hours, 
during which time he gets not a single rise! 

There are other anglers in whom entirely dif- 
ferent emotions are aroused when they are suc- 
cessful in taking fish soon after their arrival at 
the stream. To them this incident spells utter 
failure for the rest of the day. It seems to 
me that these men neglect to analyse the 
situation, permitting superstition to run riot 
with reason, and, to my mind, their troubles 
may be ascribed to any one of three causes: 
(i) At the time the angler first steps into 
the stream he may be arriving at the top or 
at the end of a rise that started fifteen, 
twenty, or thirty minutes before, which short 
space of time may be responsible for the differ- 
ence between two fish and a possible half dozen. 
If the angler meets with this experience during 
the season when the water is very low and clear, 
and the day hot and bright, he may be satisfied 
that, to a great extent, such is the explanation. 
But, if he is not a principal to cause number two, 
he should be able to continue taking some trout, 
even under these trying conditions. (2) The 



SOME FANCIES— SOME FACTS 193 

Optimist arriving at the stream side prepares 
his rod, surveys the scene of action, and, having 
selected the spot he is to fish, enters the stream 
some distance below, and quietly proceeds to 
his point of vantage. Every instinct alert, he 
is careful to make no mistake, and his care and 
deftness are at once rewarded. Continuing a 
few yards, another fish is taken, and possibly a 
bit farther on, still another. Then, blinded by 
conceit, he falls into the pit he has dug for him- 
self. He thinks he has at last the right medi- 
cine, and unknowingly (and unmeaningly, bless 
his heart) there steals over him a feeling akin to 
contempt for the wary fish he is after. The next 
pool is approached with a swagger that fills the 
trout that inhabit it with consternation, and 
drives all thought of feeding from them. Some 
day it will occur to this angler that he has been 
a bit overconfident, and he will try getting out 
of the stream, going up a hundred yards through 
the brush, and starting all over as at the be- 
ginning; then he will come to a realisation of 
the truth. (3) The pessimist, by analysing 
cause number two, may overcome, to a certain 
extent, the deep-rooted superstition that, be- 
cause he gets a trout easily at the outset, he will 
get no more throughout the day. His is a state 



194 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 

of mind that surely is not conducive to best 
effort. After taking a fish on the first few casts, 
his subsequent proceedings are governed by an 
anomalous condition of mind — he believes that 
his sport is over, yet hopes the day may prove 
the fallacy of his theory, and, in an unconscious 
effort to avoid his fate, he fishes in a careless 
manner. 

The rise which indicates that a large fish is 
feeding has, upon the minds of some anglers, 
a psychological effect which works toward de- 
feating any attempt they make in throwing to 
him. The angler is alert only to the necessity 
of placing his fly near the fish, and, caution 
thrown to the winds, he approaches in a manner 
which might be called stealthy if he used it in 
escaping from a burning building. Having be- 
gun without cautioning, thus preparing the way 
to dismal failure, he fixes his eye upon the 
spot where the rise was noted, and sends his 
fly, with no thought, perhaps, other than to get 
it on the water as quickly as possible. If his 
efforts meet with no reward — and the chances 
are that they will not — and many fish are to be 
seen feeding all about, he probably becomes 
frantic with desire to take one, runs through a 
rapid change of flies in the hope of finding one 



SOME FANCIES— SOME FACTS 195 

that will entice, wastes many precious minutes 
in his fumbling uncertainty, when suddenly all 
rising ceases, and he has lost his opportunity. 

The remedy for all of these cases is the same 
— calmness and deliberation. 

The suggestion that the sight of the leader is 
abhorrent to trout brings up a point upon which 
great stress is laid by dry fly anglers. That the 
fish is warned off by seeing the gut upon the 
surface of low, clear water is to my mind more 
certain than anything else in the sport of an- 
gling. Whether or not frequent sight of the 
leader makes the fish familiar with it, is difBcult 
to determine. Personally, I believe that when a 
fish refuses a fly because he has seen the leader 
attached to it, his timidity is likely to be due to 
the impression of its unnaturalness at the mo- 
ment, rather than to his recollection of having 
seen a like object before and learned its danger. 
In plain words — probably inviting a storm of 
protest and criticism — I am not inclined to the 
notion that trout become "educated" on streams 
that are much fished. These trout are quite 
sensitive to danger, but, in my opinion, only 
imminent danger affects them. The sudden 
appearance of an angler waving a rod, or of a 
cow fording the stream, are disturbing to trout, 



196 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 

one just as much as the other. Both angler and 
cow are in motion, and that alone attracts the 
eye of the fish; both intercept light, and thus 
cast shadows upon the water, which mean pos- 
sible danger to him. 

Anything falling upon the surface of the water 
arouses interest on the part of a fish observing 
it; if it be a shadow, he suspects danger in pro- 
portion to its size and activity; the fall of a 
leaf, a twig, or an insect is interesting to him in 
one way or another. Frequently a leaf or twig, 
if not so large as to frighten him at once, will 
be investigated at close range. I have thrown 
maple buds to trout, which were taken almost 
immediately upon striking the water, being 
slowly ejected afterward when it was discov- 
ered that the buds were not food. 

An insect intercepts light, but the insignifi- 
cant shadow it casts does not alarm the fish, 
and his attention is directed to the insect alone. 
When the artificial fly is thrown, however, it 
must necessarily be with the leader attached, 
and if it so happens that the leader, or that part 
of it close to the fly, floats upon the surface^ the 
attention of the fish is divided between the fly 
itself and the leader, the latter standing out 
boldly between the eye of the fish and the back- 



SOME FANCIES— SOME FACTS 197 

ground of sky. The leader floating upon the 
surface is more visible to the fish than when 
fully submerged. The angler who wishes to 
demonstrate this may do so by placing a length 
of gut upon the surface of some still, sunlit 
water, noting the shadow cast by it upon the 
bed of the stream, and then comparing it with 
the shadow of the same gut submerged. 

The water-strider, skipping nimbly over the 
surface of clear, shallow water, affords an ex- 
cellent illustration of shadow effects. The shad- 
ows thrown upon the bottom by this curious 
insect are enormous when compared with its 
actual size, and those resulting from the depres- 
sion in the surface made by the insect's feet 
look to be as big as a dime. It was observation 
of the shadows thrown by the water-strider that 
prompted me to experiment with the leader; 
and my first attempt, made with the lightest 
leader I had, produced a shadow upon the bot- 
tom nearly an inch in width. Whether or not 
this shadow alarms the fish more than does the 
leader itself, probably depends upon the cir- 
cumstances controlling the direction of his at- 
tention at the time, but it is certain that one or 
the other does have a marked effect upon his 
behaviour. Perhaps both combined have, and, 



198 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 

consequently, he can hardly be expected to take 
the fly when his interest is divided betwixt the 
desire to feed, on the one hand, and suspicion 
tinged with fear on the other. 

Upon glassy water, the glistening leader, twist- 
ing and turning upon the surface, accompanied 
by little wrinkles along its entire length, pre- 
sents to the fish an aspect which must at least 
arouse his curiosity and distract his attention 
from the fly — even though it does not terrify 
him and scare him off entirely. 

The visibility of the leader has always been 
one of the problems of the fly fisher, irrespective 
of the question of drag. Many attempts have 
been made to produce a leader of neutral colour 
that would be invisible, or approximately so, 
when on the water. I have done some experi- 
menting in this direction myself. I have tried 
all colours — greens and browns, mist colours 
and greys. I have steeped leaders in ink until 
they came out absolutely black. Yet, withal, I 
have failed to satisfy myself that one was better 
than the others, when I came to use it on the 
stream. If there is one colour that a leader 
may be stained to render it less visible than an- 
other, I do not know what it is. I am inclined 
to believe, however, that gut of natural colour 



SOME FANCIES-SOME FACTS 199 

is less conspicuous than gut that has been 
coloured to make it harmonise with the water. 
Partial solutions of the problem may be had by 
assuming certain controlling conditions to exist. 
For instance, as the fish views the leader from 
below, and against a background formed by 
the sky, a light-blue leader to harmonise with 
the background on a bright day, or, for a similar 
reason, a grey one on a cloudy day, may be the 
very thing. Of course, it is all very speculative, 
because the main element of the problem — what 
the fish thinks — is an unknown one. 

In my opinion, the floating, drifting leader, 
with its wrinkles and its convolutions, consti- 
tutes the worst possible form of "drag," which 
must be avoided if trout are to be taken where 
the water is slow and unruffled. The angler 
should endeavour to have the fly float and the 
leader sink — obviously, by keeping one dry and 
the other wet. He will find it even more difficult 
to keep the leader wet than to keep the fly dry; 
even when thoroughly saturated, the former will 
not submerge readily when the fly is thrown as 
lightly as it should be. 

In swifter water it is easier to keep the leader 
under the surface, but here one encounters an- 
other form of drag which, while in my opinion 



200 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 

not so fatal to the angler's chances as the one I 
have described, is oftentimes more exasperating. 
This form of drag takes place when the fly, 
although accurately and lightly placed in the 
desired spot, is snatched away almost at once 
by the current pulling on the line or leader; the 
fish may thus be deprived of an opportunity of 
securing the fly, or he may refuse it because of 
its unnatural action. The natural insect, un- 
hampered by any "string to it," drifts naturally 
with the current, and the feeding fish which 
makes for it, having accurately judged its po- 
sition and pace, rarely misses. The artificial, 
when drag is exerted upon it, dashes down-stream 
at a speed always greater than that of the 
current in which it is; besides the unnatural 
action it acquires, it sometimes ceases to be a 
floating fly, being dragged under the surface by 
the pull of the line or leader in the swifter water. 
Drag of this sort usually occurs when the line 
or the leader must fall on the swift water be- 
tween the angler and the spot he desires to 
reach with the fly, and is not always avoidable. 
Where possible, the line and leader should be 
kept out of the swift water. 

When casting to the eddies at the head of a 
pool, the angler should assume a position on the 



SOME FANCIES— SOME FACTS 201 

same side of the current as the eddy to be fished. 
An effort should be made to place the line in the 
water that is turning up-stream where the eddy 
begins to take form. The fly falling farther 
up will remain floating for a time — quite long 
enough to be taken by a fish. If this eddy can- 
not be reached from directly below, because of 
the depth of water or on account of some ob- 
stacle to clean casting, the fly may be thrown 
across the current with the up-stream curve in 
the leader. Where this is found necessary the 
leader should be watched carefully and, before 
it begins to exert a pull on the fly, the latter 
should be retrieved quickly. The fly may be 
taken from the water quietly, as it should be, 
if a forward loop is thrown in the line similar to 
that used in the switch cast. This action re- 
moves the leader from the water with but little 
disturbance, and, as the fly is about to leave the 
surface, the backward cast will carry it clear, 
practically without commotion. In the same 
manner an eddy across stream may be fished 
with little danger of a fish being put down by 
the sight of a dragging fly. The method, how- 
ever, caUs for keen alertness, and the angler 
must have perfect and constant control of rod 
and line. 



202 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 

Swift water in either a rift or a run should 
have no terrors for the angler who fears a drag- 
ging fly, if he will first study the currents. Even 
if he feels that a fish is occupying water that 
can be reached only by risking drag, he must 
always bear in mind that a fish is more likely to 
come some distance to a natural-looking fly than 
it is to take an unnatural one close to it. A 
spot should be selected as close to the assumed 
position of the fish as possible; but this choice 
should always be guided by the necessity for 
placing the fly on water swifter than that in 
which the line and leader will fall. The "re- 
tarded" drag which may set in after the fly 
has been placed in swift water, has floated down- 
stream until it is below the leader, and is held 
back by it, need not be feared, because the fly 
will have covered a considerable stretch in its 
travel, and may then be retrieved. Sometimes 
the sight of a dragging fly is more offensive to 
the angler than it is to the fish; and there are 
occasions when it will be taken, if its actions 
have not been particularly rude. 

As an aid to keeping the line afloat in swift 
water, an application of deer's fat, or one of the 
many preparations now made for the same pur- 
pose, is recommended. It is sufficient to treat 



SOME FANCIES— SOME FACTS 203 

three or four yards at the end of the line, and 
the dressing should be rubbed down smoothly 
afterward. Under no circumstances should any 
dressing be applied to the leader, because, even 
though it helps to float the fly, the gut will be 
found to be annoyingly buoyant when the still 
reaches are being fished, and will produce that 
troublesome form of drag already described, and 
which I consider the only form that unduly 
taxes the ingenuity and patience of the expert 
and even-tempered. My own opinion is that 
the sight of the leader does not seriously deter 
the fish from taking the fly in swift water. But 
on smooth water a superbuoyant leader is a 
nuisance and a plague and an abomination. 



CHAPTER VII 
THE POINT OF VIEW 

The capture of a splendid ouananiche under 
circumstances most trying is somewhere de- 
scribed by a well-known writer, who, in his inim- 
itable style, exhibits himself before his readers 
running through his entire assortment of artificial 
flies, first one and then another and still another, 
and all without avail. We see him casting, cast- 
ing, all impatience, determined, perhaps exasper- 
ated. Surely some sort of lure is predicated. 
But what ? Ah, he has it ! A live grasshopper. 
Then follows the pursuit, the overtaking, and 
the capture of the grasshopper, the impaling 
of its unfortunate body, its proffer to the fish, 
a desperate battle, and, finally, the contempla- 
tion of the finest fish of the season safely landed. 
The thrilling moment! Which was it? Why, 
of all moments, that one in which he captured 
the grasshopper! The story affords a fine illus- 
tration of what I call the " point of view," but 
until after the revelation that came to me with 
my first success with the dry fly, I did not 

fully appreciate its finer and deeper meanings. 

204 



THE POINT OF VIEW 205 

Certain pleasurable excitement always attends 
the taking of a good fish by the true angler. 
Yet, after all, the quality of his gratification 
should be measured by the method of capture. 
In angling, as in all other arts, one's taste 
and discrimination develop in proportion to his 
opportunity to see, study, and admire the work 
of greater artists. Even as a knowledge of the 
better forms of music leads, eventually, to a 
distaste for the poorer sorts, and as familiarity 
wich the work of great painters leads to disgust 
with the chromolithograph-like productions of 
the dauber, so, too, does a knowledge of the 
higher and more refined sorts of angling lead 
just as surely to the ultimate abandonment of 
the grosser methods. One who has learned to 
cast the fly seldom if ever returns to the days 
when he was content to sit upon the bank, or 
the string-piece of a pier, dangling his legs over- 
board while he watched his cork bobbing up 
and down, indicating by its motions what might 
be happening to the bunch of worms at the 
hook end of the line; and, even as casting the 
fly leads to the abandonment of the use of bait, 
so, too, does the dry fly lead to the abandonment 
of the wet or sunk fly. There can be no question 
but that the stalking of a rising trout bears to 



2o6 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 

the sport of angling the same relation to its 
grosser forms as the execution of a symphony- 
bears to the blaring of the local brass band. It 
appeals to the higher and more aesthetic quali- 
ties of the mind, and dignifies the pot-hunter's 
business into an art of the highest and finest 
character. 

I am thus brought to the consideration of 
the pot-hunter and the fish hog. Many angling 
writers there be who have not hesitated, nor 
have they been ashamed, to describe the taking 
of great numbers of trout on separate and many 
occasions. They feel, no doubt, that such nar- 
ratives entitle them to consideration as author- 
ities on the subject. I quote from one — who 
shall be nameless — his bragging description of a 
perfect slaughter of fish. After telling of twenty- 
five or thirty trout taken during midday, nam- 
ing at least a dozen flies he had found killing, 
he concludes: "All my trout were taken from 
the hook and thrown twenty-five feet to shore. 
Thirty, my friend claimed, yet when I came to 
count tails I found Jorty as handsome trout as 
ever man wished to see, and all caught from six 
in the evening until dark, about seven forty- 
five. I had no net or creel, therefore had to 
lead my trout into my hand. The friend at 



THE POINT OF VIEW 207 

whose house I was staying claims I lost more 
than I caught by having them flounder off the 
hook while trying to take them by the gills and 
by flinging them ashore'' The Italics are mine. 
And this fellow had the temerity to add that 
some poor devil (an itinerant parson, he called 
him) annoyed him by wading In and fishing 
with a "stick cut from the forest." Had Wash- 
ington Irving witnessed this fellow's fishing I 
doubt that he would have been moved to write : 
"There Is certainly something in angling that 
tends to produce a gentleness of spirit and a 
pure serenity of mind." 

There are men calling themselves anglers! — 
save the mark — who limit the number of fish 
to the capacity of creel and pockets, and to whom 
size means merely compliance with the law — a 
wicked law, at that, i which permits the taking 
of immature trout. It is not an inspiring sight 
to see a valiant angler doing battle with a six- 
inch trout, and, after brutally subjecting it to 
capture, carefully measuring it on the butt of 
his rod which he has marked for the purpose, 
stretching it. If necessary, to meet the law's re- 
quirements, and in some cases, if it does not 
come up to the legal standard, rudely flinging it 
away in disgust — to die as a result of Its mis- 



2o8 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 

handling. Happily, this tribe is not increasing, 
because of the persistent efforts of true sports- 
men who do not hesitate to denounce it publicly 
whenever opportunity arises. Perhaps it is per- 
missible to hope that the pot-hunter and the 
fish hog may in time disappear, but, if this de- 
sirable end is to be brought about, true sports- 
men must not shun their duty but must wage 
unceasing war against them. 

Books on angling abound in word-pictures de- 
scriptive of the strenuous battle of the hooked 
fish to escape its captor, many such pictures 
being so vividly drawn that the reader fairly 
imagines himself in the writer's waders, his ex- 
citement ending only when the captive is in the 
net. It is meet, therefore, that some considera- 
tion be given to the point of view of those anglers 
who believe that great merit attaches to him 
who lands a good fish on light tackle. 

There can be no question of the excitement 
attending the playing of a good trout nor of 
the skill required in its handling, and this excite- 
ment, in proportion to the ideas of the indi- 
vidual, is a greater or less measure of the sport; 
but, given the opportunity, it is my opinion 
that, in the hands of a skilful angler, the rod 
will kill nine out of ten fish hooked. Be that 



THE POINT OF VIEW 209 

as it may, can the degree of skill, even with the 
lightest tackle, displayed in the landing of a 
two or three pound trout (a fine fish on our 
Eastern streams) bear comparison with that 
required in the capture of a six-foot tarpon on 
a six-ounce rod and a six-strand line? A six- 
foot tarpon will weigh about one hundred and 
twenty pounds, and the line will bear a dead- 
weight strain of twelve pounds. Compare this 
with the three-pound trout taken on a gut leader, 
the weakest link in the angler's chain, which 
will lift a weight of two or more pounds, and 
the futility of beguiling oneself with the belief 
that the trout has any advantage will be ap- 
parent. 

The playing of a trout is undeniably part of 
the sport, but, however difficult one wishes to 
make it, it is but secondary to the pleasure de- 
rived from casting the fly and deluding that old 
trout into mistaking it for a bit of living food. 
It is this art, this skill, this study of the fish it- 
self and its habits, that places dry fly fishing 
for trout far ahead of all other forms of angling. 
It has been said that there is no sport that re- 
quires in its pursuit a greater knowledge of 
the game, more skill, more perseverance, than 
fly fishing, and that no sport holds its votaries 



2IO THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 

longer. I am quite of this opinion. "There is 
no genuine enjoyment in the easy achievement of 
any purpose," and in fly fishing a full measure 
of satisfaction is obtained only when the taking 
of a single fish is accomplished under conditions 
most difficult and trying. 

The true angler is content only when he feels 
that he has taken his fish by the employment 
of unusual skill. The highest development of 
this skill at the present state of the angler's art 
is the dry fly method. I do not deny that there 
are many anglers who have carried sunk fly and 
even worm casting to a high degree of special- 
isation and refinement; yet it seems to me — • 
nay, more than that, it is a positive conviction 
with me — that no manner of sunk fly or worm 
or bait casting bears any sort of favourable 
comparison to the manner of the dry fly. I 
know that in this country, at least, the dry fly 
man is accused by his sunk fly fellows of being 
affected, dogmatic, fanatic. Yet it is not so. 
The dry fly man has passed through all of the 
stages of the angler's life, from the cane pole 
and the drop-line to the split bamboo and the 
fur-and-feather counterfeit of the midge fly. 
He has experienced throes of delight each time 
he advanced from the lower to the higher grade 



THE POINT OF VIEW 211 

of angler. I insist that I do not make my words 
too strong when I say that in all of angling there 
is no greater delight than that which comes to 
the dry fly angler who simulates a hatch of flies, 
and entices to the surface of the water a fish 
lying hidden, unseen, in the stronghold of his 
own selection. Let him who doubts put aside 
his prejudice long enough to give the premier 
method fair trial, and soon he will be found 
applying for the highest degree of the cult — 
"dry fly man." 



CHAPTER VIII 
A FEW PATTERNS OF FLIES 

The literature devoted to the subject of the 
artificial fly is very extensive and informing, 
and it is not my intention to add thereto except 
for the purpose of describing a few flies that I 
use in my own fishing. The tackle shops offer 
almost countless patterns of flies of varied hues 
and forms, and anglers can indulge their indi- 
vidual tastes by choosing sizes, colours, and shapes 
to suit their fancies. I have never attempted to 
compute the number of artificial flies listed in 
the dealers' catalogues and described in the 
works of angling writers, but I think it must 
run into the hundreds. There is, however, a 
growing tendency toward restriction in the 
number of special patterns used in actual fish- 
ing, and in my own fishing I have reduced this 
number to a very small one. 

It is doubtless true that the fly fisher derives 
no small part of his pleasure from the act of 
selecting and purchasing flies. It is within the 



A FEW PATTERNS OF FLIES 213 

experience of every fly fisher, I think, that, 
under the influence of the memory of a certain 
fish taken on a particular pattern of fly, he in- 
cludes a dozen or two of the sort in his next 
purchase. Perhaps the fly is a nondescript that 
he may never again find successful, but, never- 
theless, he adds it to his store. Angling friends 
recommend their patterns to him, or some 
special flies they found taking under certain 
circumstances or over particular streams, and 
these, too, he buys and puts away. Maybe 
he may never use one of them, and in the end 
he comes, perhaps, to feel, as does the philate- 
list, great pleasure in the possession of a wor- 
thy collection: he has the pride of ownership, 
but no thought of putting his treasures to use. 
Of course, there can be no reasonable objection 
to fly collecting, and I can see how it may be- 
come as fascinating an employment as stamp 
or coin collecting. 

Assuming that the angler is a believer in 
close imitation, he will, of course, be content 
only when he has all of the patterns which have 
been created by the votaries of the theory; but 
if he should be inclined to agree with me — that 
a great part of the imitation must be produced 
by the angler himself while actually fishing the 



214 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 

stream — he will find that about ten patterns 
will suffice under nearly all circumstances. 

I give the dressings of eight patterns, although 
I rarely use over six. If I were compelled to do 
so, I could get along very well with one — the 
Whirling Dun. Fishing the Brodhead through- 
out the month of July, I used this fly exclusively, 
and took fish every day except two. On three 
separate occasions I used a different fly — at one 
time a Pink Lady, at another a Mole, and at 
still another a Silver Sedge. On each occasion 
I took one fish with the selected fly, after which 
I went back to the Whirling Dun, and continued 
my fishing. I killed one or two fish each day, 
the average for the month being very close to a 
pound and a half. I returned many fish to the 
water, and these averaged over ten inches. 
Some days the fish were feeding, and some days 
they were not. There was apparently little dif- 
ference in the taking effect of the fly, except 
that it was taken readily when it was delivered 
properly, and never when it was not. 

No matter how great the faith an angler has 
in a single pattern, it will naturally be very 
difficult for him to confine himself to its exclu- 
sive use. So much of his sport depends upon its 
delightful uncertainty, that if he does confine 



A FEW PATTERNS OF FLIES 215 

himself to the use of the single pattern, he 
will, of a consequence, be denied the pleasure 
of congratulating himself upon the acumen 
he has shown by the selection of the fly 
which is taken, after the favourite has been 
refused. 

With the exception of the Pink Lady, the flies 
described are all standard patterns — tied, how- 
ever, according to my own preference. Anglers 
who wish a more varied choice, one that in- 
cludes one or two fancies, may add to the list 
a Wickham's Fancy and, for use when the fish 
are smutting, a small black gnat tied with a 
glossy black hackle and no wings — a variety 
that will often prove very effective when the 
fish are feeding in that manner. A Marlow 
Buzz may be included for use on windy days 
when the larger land insects are blown upon 
the water. 

The flies commonly used by me, with their 
dressings, are as follows: 

Whirling Dun (Blue) 

Wings. — Starting or duck, medium light. 
Body. — Water-rat or mole fur; two turns of flat gold tin- 
sel around hook at end of body. 
Legs. — Glossy ginger or light brown cock's hackle. 
Tail. — Three whisks of same. 



2i6 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 

Pale Evening Dun (Watery Dun) 

Wings. — Light starling. 

Body. — Lemon mohair lightly dressed. 

Legs. — Glossy barred Plymouth Rock cock's hackle. 

Tail. — Two or three whisks of same. 

Pink Lady 

Wings. — Medium starling or duck. 
Body. — Pale pink floss ribbed with flat gold tinsel. 
Legs. — Ginger or light reddish-brown hackle. 
Tail. — Three whisks of same. 

Gold-Ribbed Hare's Ear 

Wings. — Medium starling or duck. 

Body. — Hare's fur ribbed with flat gold tinsel body, 

not too heavy. 
Legs. — Hare's fur tied on with silk. 
Tail. — Two or three rather long whisks, grey mallard. 

Flight's Fancy 

Wings. — Light starling or duck. 

Body. — Pale yellow floss ribbed with flat gold tinsel. 

Legs. — Ginger hackle. 

Tail. — Two or three whisks of same. 

The body of this fly will turn green when wet, 
which is nothing against it, however. 

Silver Sedge 

Wings. — Rather dark starling. 

Body. — ^White floss ribbed with flat silver tinsel. 

Legs. — Pale ginger hackle. 

Tail. — ^Two or three whisks of same. 

The body of this fly will turn a greyish-blue 

when wet, but the change does not affect its taking 

qualities. 



A FEW PATTERNS OF FLIES 217 

Willow 

Wings. — None. 

Body. — Light blue fur, mole or fox, ribbed with light 

yellow silk. 
Legs. — Glossy white or transparent hackle. 
Tail. — Two whisks of same. 

Mole 

Wings. — Medium starling or duck. 

Body. — Light mole fur lightly dressed and tightly wound. 
Legs. — Purplish-brown (dyed), hackle tied palmer-wise. 
Tail. — Three or four whisks of same. 

The standard pattern of this fly is tied with light 
brown woodcock wings. 

It is advisable that each of the patterns be 
tied on hooks of different sizes — Nos. 10, 12, 14, 
and 16 will suffice — because the size of the fly is 
often important, particularly when the water is 
very low and clear. 

If a greater aid is required in floating the fly 
(barring the use of paraffin) other than a stiff 
hackle at the shoulder, I would recommend 
that a short-fibred hackle be tied on at the 
shoulder and carried around and down the body 
to the tail, the fibres being cut off close to the 
body after tying. The effect of this dressing 
will be to make the fly float better, particularly 
after some use, and after the points of the 
longer shoulder hackles have been submerged. 



21 8 THE DRY FLY AND FAST WATER 

The short fibres along the body, by intercept- 
ing some Hght and permitting some to pass 
through, will help to produce the effect of trans- 
parency or translucency of the natural insect, 
which effect would be particularly noticeable 
upon flies where quill is used for the body. The 
use of this hackle can be dispensed with in the 
case of those flies where fur or mohair is used for 
the body — a few fibres picked out with a needle 
producing much the same appearance and effect. 
It may be the experience of other anglers who 
have experimented with the artificial fly in at- 
tempts to produce one that would cock read- 
ily and maintain a good balance on the water, 
that one tied with the wings leaning rather 
more forward than is the present practice, 
offers the nearest solution to these difficulties. 
My own experience is that flies tied in this 
manner sit beautifully upon the water, but I 
cannot say that they cock any more frequently 
than those tied with upright wings. I would 
suggest that the angler tie a few flies with the 
wings tilted forward at an angle of about 120°, 
and try them. If nothing else is accomplished, 
the experiment may lead to a development in 
the form of the fly which will enable us all to 
some day take the one "big fish." 



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